By prenatal care is meant the management of a woman through an entire pregnancy, both from the standpoint of general medicine and of obstetrics. Prenatal care should be closely associated with preconceptional care. During the past war thousands of American young men were called to service by the armed forces and found to be physically unfit. The same must be true with the women of childbearing age. In World War I a similar situation arose, and the result was by and large the same. Prenatal care is helpful to all women, and it is essential for a considerable number who must avoid disaster. It is obvious that pregnancy, labor, and delivery are physiological processes, and it is also obvious that all women are not normal physiologically. Therefore the objective of prenatal care is to detect and correct situations that are not physiologically normal. For example, a woman with impaired kidney