126
Healthful Living
see and hear, and parents should improve the opportunity to instruct
and patiently answer these little inquiries.—
How to Live, 42, 44
.
Hygiene of Motherhood
636. It is an error generally committed to make no difference in
the life of a woman previous to the birth of her children.—
Testimonies
for the Church 2:381
.
637. In past generations, if mothers had informed themselves in
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regard to the laws of their being, they would have understood that
their constitutional strength, as well as the tone of their morals, and
their mental faculties, would in a great measure be represented in
their offspring. Their ignorance upon this subject, where so much
is involved, is criminal. Many women never should have become
mothers. Their blood was filled with scrofula, transmitted to them
from their parents, and increased by their gross manner of living. The
intellect has been brought down and enslaved to serve the animal
appetites, and children born of such parents have been poor sufferers,
and of but little use to society....
Wives and mothers who otherwise would have had a beneficial in-
fluence upon society in raising the standard of morals, have been lost to
society through multiplicity of home cares, because of the fashionable,
health-destroying manner of cooking, and also in consequence of too
frequent child-bearing. They have been compelled to needless suffer-
ing, the constitution has failed, and the intellect has become weakened
by so great a draught upon the vital resources.... If the mother, before
the birth of her offspring, had always possessed self-control, realizing
that she was giving the stamp of character to future generations, the
present state of society would not be so depreciated in character as at
the present time.
Every woman about to become a mother, whatever may be her sur-
roundings, should encourage constantly a happy, cheerful, contented
disposition, knowing that for all her efforts in this direction she will
be repaid tenfold in the physical as well as the moral character of her
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offspring.—
How to Live, 37, 38
.
638. Great care should be exercised to have the surroundings of
the mother pleasant and happy.... Not half the care is taken of some