otherhood,
brings about conflict, and so leads to mental and bodily unrest. Of
course this interferes little or not at all with some, probably most of
the present-day mothers, but is a factor of importance in the lives of
many.

The nervous housewife has several difficulties in her relations to her
children. These are of importance in understanding her and have been
touched on before this, but it will be of advantage to consider them as
a group.

We have said that the opinion of obstetricians is that the modern woman
has more difficulty in delivering herself than did her ancestress. If
this is true (and we may be dealing with the fact that obstetricians are
often the ones to see the difficult cases, or that these stand out in
their memories) there are several explanations.

First, women marry later than they did. It may be said that the first
child is easiest born before the mother is twenty-five years of age, and
that from that time on a first child is born with rapidly increasing
difficulty. The pelvis, like all the bony-joint structures of the body,
loses plasticity with years, and plasticity is the prime need for
childbearing. Similarly with the uterus, which is of course a muscular
organ, but possesses an elastic force that diminishes as the woman grows
older.

Second, the vigor of the uterine contractions upon which the passage of
the baby depends is controlled largely by the so-called sympathetic
nervous system, though glands throughout the body are very important
factors as well. This part of the nervous system and these glands are
part of the mechanism of emotion as well as of childbearing, and emotion
plays a role of importance in childbearing. The modern woman _fears_
childbearing as her ancestress did not, partly through greater
knowledge, partly through her divided attitude towards life.

Having a harder time in childbearing means a slower convalescence, a
need for more rest and care. Then nursing becomes somehow more
difficult, more wearing to the mother; she rebels more against it, and
yet, knowing its importance, she tries to "keep her milk." It often
seems that the more women know about nursing, the less able they are to
nurse, that the ignorant slum-dweller who nurses the child each time it
cries and drinks beer to furnish milk does better than her enlightened
sister who nurses by the clock and drinks milk as a source of her baby's
supply.

The feeling of great responsibility for her child's we