Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

MARRIAGEpital. The spontaneous deliveries were 85 per cent, andonly in 8 cases was any intervention necessary for disproportion,while the still-birth and neo-natal death-ratewas 6.5 per cent as against 11.8 for all children born inthe Hospital. Difficulty and danger are much greater forelderly women. Whatever the age at which childbirth begins,it is most certainly desirable, in the interests ofmother and children alike, as well as of the husband andfather, that an interval of at least two years should elapsebetween pregnancies. The optimum average number ofchildren, under modern conditions, alike for the familyand for the maintenance of the population,is betweentwo and three. Formerly, under bad social conditions andwith a high mortality, the number was higher. Eugenicconsiderations will here, as social enlightenment advances,become more and more influential, some families will besmaller, and others may legitimately be larger.In considering the attitude towards procreation and thefrequency with which, under present conditions, contraceptionis demanded, a question arises to which, finally,reference may here be made. Since most contraceptivemethods involve either the avoidance of contact of thesperm with the vagina or at all events its speedy removal,are the benefits of intercourse for the woman thus diminished?This question involves in the first place the problemof the uterine and vaginal absorptive capacity.It is aquestion which has sometimes been made prominent byopponents of contraception anxious to find usefully offensiveweapons. There can be no doubt that the vaginalwalls are absorptive, as is the bladder in which injectedpoisons have provedfatal to animals in a few minutes.This was formerly often denied, as by Rohleder. But ithas since been repeatedly demonstrated. Thus G. D. Robinsonand Loeser, both in the same year[295]1925 though in