Physiologists admit and observation proves that maternal emotions do affect the development and the exterior of the fetus; likewise the mental organization of the fetus may be affected.  All unpleasant news, frights, and physical shocks, also scenes of suffering and distress, must be avoided, as the mind is particularly impressionable at this time.  Around the patient should be thrown a gentle and protective care, and she should be treated with the considerate kindness which her condition demands.  Theatres and all places where there will be a large assemblage of people should be avoided, as the close air and general bad ventilation are apt to produce vertigo and sometimes attacks of fainting.

Sleep.—­ During pregnancy a large amount of sleep is required; there should be eight hours spent in sleep at night, and one hour every afternoon.  Pregnant women should never do any night watching.  There is unusual necessity for good ventilation during sleep at this time.

The Marital Relation.—­ Coitus is, as a rule, distasteful to pregnant women.  It is for the best interest of the wife as well as for that of the child that all marital relation should be suspended at this time.  Even uncivilized nations have condemned the privilege of sexual intercourse during pregnancy, and have visited punishment on the offender.  If these relations are not wholly suspended, they must at least be at those periods which correspond to the time at which the woman would have been unwell had she not been pregnant.  To the continuance of these relations throughout the pregnancy is due much of the suffering of the wife, not only then, but at the time of the labor as well; and the nourishment of the child is interfered with.

Causes of Miscarriage.—­ Hemorrhoids; straining at stool; excessive intercourse in the newly married; nursing; ocean-bathing; overexertion; overexcitement; a fall; any violent emotion; anger; sudden or excessive joy; a fright; running; dancing; horseback-riding; riding in a heavily built carriage over rough roads; great fatigue; lifting heavy weights; the abuse of purgative medicines; disease or displacements of the womb; and a general condition of ill health.

The danger of miscarriage is greatest during the first three months of pregnancy.  Miscarriage is a fruitful source of disease and often of danger to wives; it is said that thirty-seven out of every hundred pregnant women miscarry.  Miscarriage is most apt to occur during the first pregnancy; and great care should be taken to prevent this, as the habit is easily established, and after one miscarriage has occurred, another is likely to follow, so that it is sometimes with the greatest difficulty that the woman can be made to carry the fetus to full term.  Artificially produced abortions are not an infrequent cause of sterility; the young wife becomes pregnant, and has an abortion produced because she is not yet ready to give up all her pleasures; and eventually when she does become very anxious to have a child such an extent of uterine disease has been produced by the abortions that she cannot conceive.