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

haemorrhage or expulsion, there should be added care, and I would forbid these physical exercises to her during pregnancy. But there may be full use of physical exercises if and when previous gestations have been normal and successful, and shown no constitutional tendency to uterine convulsions or spells of bleeding. The reason for special caution in the final weeks of pregnancy are different. I have specified the final six weeks, but this allows a fair margin and is perhaps somewhat indefinite. Among women who have not already borne several children the lower portion of the womb does not always retain the firmness and tension necessary to lift and enclose its contents : thus any marked and especially any sudden increase of pressure sometimes causes rupture of the protective membranes (amnion, chorion). Therefore, every physical exercise entailing such increase of pressure within the abdominal cavity—whether actively or passively, by vigorous muscular exertion or simple pressure on the abdo- men—should be avoided by multipara * in the final stages of gestation. The particular peril in their case is the exact reverse of the risk run in the early months, which is greatest in women who are pregnant for the first time. The danger of ruptured membranes, loss of some of the liquid in which the unborn infant lies, and, in consequence, premature labour, is greater in multiparas because their cervix (the lower portion or " neck " of the womb) is generally some- what dilated in the later months, so there should be no vigorous abdominal exercise at that stage. The multipara whose abdominal muscles have not been strengthened by correct exercise and care in her successive previous pregnancies, and who has, therefore, become flaccid and even somewhat pendulous as a result, should certainly wear a deep and firm support—special belt or corset—when performing physical exercises. I shall now conclude these hints, recommendations and warnings to the expectant mother with a quotation from Heinz Kiistner's treatise, " Ought a Woman to take part in Sports during Pregnancy ? "{38) For, although I have * Women who have borne several children.