Page:Contraception; 1st ed. (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.94163).pdf/246

length of time between fraternal births, to which reference has already been made (see p. 45). Expressed in a few words the main result of these inquiries was to show that where less than two years intervened between successive births from the same mother, the chances of life of the infant were almost halved in comparison with those spaced at two-year intervals or more. Consequently the argument is obvious that spacing by control so that the natural hasty succession of births is avoided is a measure of national benefit, as producing more economically than in any other way a larger proportion of healthy potential citizens. This is also well shown in a general way by the middle classes who on the whole have spaced children, and who lose far fewer in infancy than do the classes ignorant of means of control.

That the knowledge of contraceptives is used in this way to produce families in the interests of the State is interestingly demonstrated by the results of the questionnaire sent out by the Bureau of Social Hygiene in America,^[1] which showed that the average number of pregnancies was