prospective mothers of the necessity of earning a living, but there
are also excellent hygienic reasons against many kinds of employment.
For example, it should be unlawful to employ them in chemical
industries where, owing to their condition, they are especially
liable to be injured by the materials which they handle. Jacobi
states that the worst occupation for pregnant women is working with
metals, in particular lead; more than half of them suffer miscarriage
or premature confinement. Furthermore, the health of the child may be
endangered if the prospective mother does hard work of any kind. This
is true chiefly because she does not have appropriate intervals of
relaxation, for it is a firmly established principle that a
prospective mother must be free to rest the moment she begins to feel
tired. The least, therefore, that can be done to better prevalent
conditions among women who must work during pregnancy is to require
by law a reduction in the number of their working hours, and to
protect them from the necessity of earning a living for two months
after they have been delivered.

RELAXATION AND REST.--During the early months of pregnancy many women
complain that they feel enervated, and tire quickly even when they do
things which were formerly done with ease; this experience is so
common that it can scarcely be considered other than natural.
Curiously enough this is also the period during which the attachment
of the ovum to the womb is relatively insecure, and therefore the
inclination to be quiet is justified by the prevailing anatomical
conditions. No prospective mother should struggle against the
inclination to rest; she should yield to it in spite of the advice to
the contrary which older women are apt to give. Furthermore, it is
especially important about the time when a menstrual period would
ordinarily be expected to be guided by this impulse not to be active,