s enforced rest a woman should
receive the same salary as during work." He adds that the
children of unmarried mothers should be cared for by the State,
that there should be an eight-hours' day for all workers, and
that no children under sixteen should be allowed to work (E.
Leyboff, _L'Hygiene de la Grossesse_, These de Paris, 1905).

Perruc states that at least two months' rest before confinement
should be made compulsory, and that during this period the woman
should receive an indemnity regulated by the State. He is of
opinion that it should take the form of compulsory assurance, to
which the worker, the employer, and the State alike contributed
(Perruc, _Assistance aux Femmes Enceintes_, These de Paris,
1905).

It is probable that during the earlier months of pregnancy, work,
if not excessively heavy and exhausting, has little or no bad
effect; thus Bacchimont (_Documents pour servir a l'Histoire de
la Puericulture Intra-uterine_, These de Paris, 1898) found that,
while there was a great gain in the weight of children of mothers
who had rested for three months, there was no corresponding gain
in the children of those mothers who had rested for longer
periods. It is during the last three months that freedom, repose,
the cessation of the obligatory routine of employment become
necessary. This is the opinion of Pinard, the chief authority on
this matter. Many, however, fearing that economic and industrial
conditions render so long a period of rest too difficult of
practical attainment, are, with Clappier and G. Newman, content
to demand two months as a minimum; Salvat only asks for one
month's rest before confinement, the woman, whether married or
not, receiving a pecuniary indemnity during this period, with
medical care and drugs free. Ballantyne (_Manual of Antenatal
Pathology: The Foetus_, p. 475), as well as Niven, also asks only
for one month's compulsory rest during pregnancy, with indemnity.
Arthur Helme, however, taking a more comprehensive view of all
the factors involved, concludes in a valuable paper on "The
Unborn Child: Its Care and Its Rights" (_British Medical
Journal_, Aug. 24, 1907), "The important thing would be to
prohibit pregnant women from going to work at all, and it is as
important from the standpoint of the child that this prohibition
should