this good luck. Some women (about fifty per cent.)
begin to menstruate in the sixth month of lactation, while some become
pregnant even before they begin to menstruate. It only too often
happens that a woman considering lactation her safeguard omits to use
any precautions and finds herself, to her great discomfiture, in a
pregnant condition.

When a nursing woman discovers that she is pregnant she should give up
nursing at once. The milk is apt to become of poor quality, but even
where this is not the case, it is too much for a woman to feed one
child in the uterus and one at the breast.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ABORTION AND MISCARRIAGE

Definition of Word Abortion--Definition of Word Miscarriage--
Spontaneous Abortion--Induced Abortion--Therapeutic Abortion--
Criminal Abortion--Missed Abortion--Habitual Abortion--Syphilis
as Cause of Abortion and Miscarriage--Dangers of Abortion--
Abortion an Evil.

The word abortion, used somewhat loosely, signifies the premature
expulsion of the fetus; the expulsion of the fetus from the womb
before it is viable, i.e., before it is capable of living
independently. Used in a stricter sense, the word abortion is applied
to the expulsion of the fetus up to the end of the 16th week; to the
expulsion of the fetus between the 16th and the 28th week the term
miscarriage is applied; and when the expulsion of the fetus takes
place after the 28th week, but before full term, we use the term
premature labor. The laity does not like the term abortion, as it is
under the impression that the term always signifies criminal abortion;
it therefore prefers to use the term miscarriage ("miss"), regardless
of the time at which the expulsion of the fetus takes place.

When an abortion (or miscarriage) takes place by itself, without any
outside aid, we call it _spontaneous abortion_. When it is brought on
by artificial means, whether by the woman herself or by somebody else,
we call it _induced_ abortion. When an abortion is induced for the
purpose of saving the woman's life, we call it _therapeutic_ abortion;
this is considered perfectly legal and proper. But where an abortion
is induced merely to save an unmarried mother's reputation, or because
the married mother is too poor or too weak to have any more children,
or is reluctant to have any (or any more) for any other reason, it is
called _criminal_ or _illegal_ abortion, and, if discovered, subjects
the mother and the person who produ