The Editor: Maternal Impressions 



517 



If, on the other hand, the mother is 

 constantly harassed by fear or hatred, 

 her physical health will suffer, she wih 

 be unable properly to nourish her 

 developing offspring, and it, when born, 

 may by its poor physical condition 

 indicate this. 



Further, if the mother experiences a 

 great mental or physical shock, it may 

 so upset her health that her child is not 

 properly nourished, its development is 

 arrested, mentally as well as physically, 

 and it is born feebleminded. Goddard, 

 for example, tells' of a high-grade 

 imbecile in the Training School at 

 Vineland, N. J. "Nancy belongs to a 

 thoroughly normal, respectable family. 

 There is nothing to account for the 

 condition unless one accepts the mother's 

 theory. While it sounds somewhat like 

 the discarded theory of maternal im- 

 pression, yet it is not impossible that the 

 fright and shock which the mother 

 received may have interfered with the 

 nutrition of the unborn child and 

 resulted in the mental defect. The 

 story in brief is as follows: Shortly 

 before this child was born, the mother 

 was compelled to take care of a sister- 

 in-law who was in a similar condition 

 and very ill with convulsions. Our 

 child's mother was many times fright- 

 ened severely as her sister-in-law was 

 quite out of her mind. She says that 

 this child's ways often recall to her the 

 sister-in-law's actions at that time." 



We can easily understand that any 

 event which makes such an impression 

 on the mother as to affect her health, 

 might so disturb the normal functioning 

 of her body that her child would be 

 badly nourished, or even poisoned. 

 Such facts are not antagonistic to 

 scientific thought ; and they undoubtedly 

 form the basis on which the airy fabric 

 of pre-natal culture was reared by the 

 hands of those who lived before the 

 days of scientific biology. 



ALLEGED CASES EXPLAINED 



Thus, it is easy enough to see the 

 real explanation of such cases as those 

 mentioned by the "Better Babies" 

 expert, near the beginning of this paper. 

 The mothers who fret and rebel over 



* Goddard, H. H. Feeblemindedness, p. 359. 



their maternity, she found, are likely 

 to bear neurotic children. It is obvious 

 ( 1 ) that mothers who fret and rebel are 

 quite likely themselves to be neurotic in 

 constitution, and the child naturally 

 gets his heredity from them; (2) that 

 constant fretting and rebellion would so 

 affect the mother's health that her 

 child would not be ]3roperly nourished. 



When, however, she goes on to draw 

 the inference that "self-control, cheer- 

 fulness and love . . . will practically 

 insure you a child normal in physique 

 and nerves," we are obliged to stop. 

 We know that what she says is not true. 

 If the child's heredity is bad, neither 

 self-control, cheerfulness, love, nor any- 

 thing else known to science, can make 

 that heredity good. 



At first thought, we may wish it were 

 otherwise. There is something inspiring 

 in the idea of a mother overcoming the 

 effect of heredity by the sheer force of 

 her own will-power. But the idea is 

 merely a hallucination, and perhaps in 

 the long run it is as well: for there are 

 advantages on the other side. It should 

 be a satisfaction to mothers to know 

 that their children will not be marked 

 or injured by untoward events in the 

 ante-natal days; that if the child's 

 heredity cannot be changed for the 

 better, neither can it be changed for the 

 worse. 



The pre-natal culturists and maternal- 

 impressionists are trying to place on 

 her a responsibility which she need 

 not bear. 



Obviously, it is the mother who is 

 most nearly concerned with the bogie 

 of maternal impressions, and it should 

 make for her peace of mind to know 

 that it is nothing more than a bogie. 



It is important for the expectant 

 mother to keep herself in as nearly per- 

 fect condition as possible, both physically 

 and mentally. Her bodily mechan- 

 ism will then run smoothly, and the 

 child will get from her blood the 

 nourishment needed for development, 

 in proper quantity and proper quality. 

 Beyond that, there is nothing the 

 mother can do to influence the develop- 

 ment of her child. There is not a shred 

 of evidence to support the idea that 

 New York, the iMacmillan Company, 1914. 



