DR. CAROLINE HEDGER'S PAPER 287 



THE RELATION OF THE EDUCATION 

 OF THE GIRL TO INFANT MOR- 

 TALITY. 



BY CAROLINE HEDGER, M.D., CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. 



WE hear of decreasing birth-rates and widespread 

 inability to nurse, and on the mother's ability to 

 nurse her child depends in large measure its chance 

 of life. Spencer fifty years ago flatly stated that the 

 high-pressure education in vogue in Great Britain 

 produced flat-chested women who could not nurse 

 their children. If this is true, education has a fatally 

 close relationship to infant mortality. 



The destruction of the unborn goes constantly 

 forward. Why ? Because the girl is either not pre- 

 pared for her reproductive life by her mother or the 

 school, or is prepared in terms of pathology or fear. 

 Why should she, when under economic pressure, pre- 

 serve the product of conception if it is only a part 

 of something so unspeakable that she cannot be 

 taught the most rudimentary physiologic facts or 

 hygiene that she should know ? 



We hear of the ignorance of mothers who feed 

 and care for their babies so badly that they die. 

 Why? Because the education to which we subject 

 the girl has up to this time nothing, and now has 

 very little, in it that will help in the tremendous 

 responsibility that falls upon her in carrying forward 

 the race. 



On this point there are encouraging signs in the 

 formation of little mothers' leagues and little mothers' 

 schools, but these are as yet wholly inadequate in 

 number and in method?. The development alono the 

 line of domestic science ensures for the older children 

 a better home, but little has been taught in such 

 schools about infant conservation, one shining excep- 

 tion being the Washington Irving High School in 



