Page:Contraception; 1st ed. (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.94163).pdf/68

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CONTRACEPTION

Case 251.—A lady in very comfortable circumstances, finely built and exceptionally strong and healthy, exceptionally intelligent and with an intelligent and devoted husband. After the birth of her first child she was told by both doctor and nurse that she could have unions while she was nursing with perfect safety from risk of conceiving. She nursed the infant and became pregnant within a month again. Second child born ten months after the first, it was weakly and died in early infancy. Husband furious with misleading medical advice, ascertained and took contraceptive measures, spaced the next child after three years' interval, next child very healthy and successful and wife regained her strength.

Modern gynæcology is quite clear on the principle that at least two,^[1] preferably three, and in some cases even five years should intervene between successive preg-

↑ Dr. J. W. Ballantyne, cross-examined by the Birth Rate Commission: "Q—Is it not the case that now it is almost a rule for the medical man to tell the parents that there ought not to be another child, say, for two years, and in some cases for three years? I suggest that that advice is much more frequently given now than formerly; that it is a very good thing that it should be given, and that that probably has had a great effect in reducing the birth rate? A.—I think there is no doubt that doctors do say that." Second Report, National Birth Rate Commission, 1917, p. 178.

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[1] Dr. J. W. Ballantyne, cross-examined by the Birth Rate Commission: "Q—Is it not the case that now it is almost a rule for the medical man to tell the parents that there ought not to be another child, say, for two years, and in some cases for three years? I suggest that that advice is much more frequently given now than formerly; that it is a very good thing that it should be given, and that that probably has had a great effect in reducing the birth rate? A.—I think there is no doubt that doctors do say that." Second Report, National Birth Rate Commission, 1917, p. 178.

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