Sex efficiency through exercises : special physical culture for women / by Th. H. van de Velde ; [photos, by E. Steinemann].

CHAPTER IX USES IN PARTURITION OR BIRTH Sex efficiency through pelvic exercises may be just as valuable in the act of birth as in the act of mating. The pelvic floor muscles are somewhat limited in their accessory possible functions, and can help principally by active dilation or relaxation. But this active dilation can very appreciably help birth as well as preserve the perivaginal muscles from injury. I am in agreement with Westmann that " an active cramp or convulsive contraction of the pelvic floor, in reaction to the pains of labour, can materially hinder and delay the emergence of the head." And every midwife, every obstetrician, knows what that means! If the parturient mother has been weakened and exhausted by prolonged labour to such a degree that she can no longer control this automatic resistance of the tissues of her pelvic floor, her child risks death before it sees the light of day. And many " forceps deliveries," with all the disadvantages they entail for mother and baby, might be avoided if women had learnt to " loosen the pelvic floor." And what needless accumulation and prolongation of pain ! Not only through the protracted ordeal of birth, but also because of the simultaneous convulsions of the expulsive uterine muscle, and resistance of the pelvic floor, with the dangers of exten- sive ruptures and lacerations ! Of course, the muscles are not the only resistant factors in the pelvic floor. This rigidity is often shared by the tendinous fibres (fascice), the connective tissue, the vaginal wall and the skin, especially in the far from infrequent cases of a certain degree of arrest of growth or infantilism. Or there may be diminished elasticity because the first birth takes place much later than Nature intended. The vaginal and pelvic tissues are most supple and elastic in the early twenties