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babybird
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24 Aug 2022, 12:52 pm

It's mind blowing when you think about it.

A whole new human comes out of one small hole.


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TwilightPrincess
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24 Aug 2022, 3:10 pm

It’s crazy.

I’m just really thankful that I gave birth in modern times. My son and I would have died otherwise.



amykitten
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24 Aug 2022, 3:44 pm

Both mine were cut out but even that was pretty small if you think about it



Joe90
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24 Aug 2022, 5:06 pm

I don't know how other women do it. I envy them for not being an overthinking wuss like me. If everyone was as bad as me then...well no-one would be born. I know you can have C-section but I heard that can be very sore and painful afterwards and can leave permanent damage to your bladder or stomach muscles.

I heard giving birth is worse pain than breaking a bone. I've never broken a bone before so I don't even know how bad that pain is, let alone giving birth.


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TwilightPrincess
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24 Aug 2022, 5:45 pm

I found giving birth very painful, but the pain was tempered somewhat by the excitement I felt about having a baby. The pain meant that I would be meeting him very soon.

It also meant that my difficult pregnancy was almost over. I had morning sickness/daily vomiting during my entire pregnancy. I would take birth pains over unrelenting nausea any day of the week.



SharonB
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24 Aug 2022, 6:47 pm

Mind blowing. Both times, at the final push, I was pretty sure I couldn't push anymore and accepted I might die. Then the babes came out and the "be happy" chemicals kicked in. I still remember the sensation (even sounds?) of the exits. I have relived it in dreams. (The hole is not so little anymore.)



babybird
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25 Aug 2022, 3:12 pm

Twilightprincess wrote:
It’s crazy.

I’m just really thankful that I gave birth in modern times. My son and I would have died otherwise.


I also wonder if we've become more physically equipped to cope with childbirth through evolution and how many early humans lost their lives due to giving birth.


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TwilightPrincess
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25 Aug 2022, 3:42 pm

babybird wrote:
Twilightprincess wrote:
It’s crazy.

I’m just really thankful that I gave birth in modern times. My son and I would have died otherwise.


I also wonder if we've become more physically equipped to cope with childbirth through evolution and how many early humans lost their lives due to giving birth.


In terms of evolution, I’ve read that childbirth became harder once humans evolved the ability to walk upright because it led to narrower hips, etc. (Humans struggle compared to other primates and mammals.) Evolution is not always without disadvantages.

Quote:
Other mammals don’t have the same problems that we do for two reasons: their heads aren’t so large, relative to their body size, and they don’t walk upright. Evolving a fully upright gait required our ancestors to change the angle and shape of the pelvis, which reduced the width of the pelvic canal. Natural selection is therefore pulling the pelvis in two different directions.

To run fast, we need a narrow pelvis but to give birth easily, we need a wide one. This is known as the obstetric dilemma and the pelvis of modern humans is a compromise between these constraints. Our brains grow 3.3 times larger from birth to adult, compared with 2.5 times for chimpanzees, so humans are already born at a much earlier stage of development than other animals. But if women had hips any wider than they do now, they wouldn’t be able to run. Natural selection has probably been a lot more ruthless in eliminating slow-running mothers or underdeveloped newborns, than those women who are put off the idea of childbirth by the pain it causes.


https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human- ... birth/amp/



TwilightPrincess
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25 Aug 2022, 3:53 pm

Quote:
For Australopithecus sediba, which lived 1.95 million years ago in South Africa, we see "a relatively easy birth process", says study researcher Dr Natalie Laudicina.

"The foetal head and shoulder breadth have ample space to pass through even the tightest dimensions of the maternal birth canal," she says.

It's a different story today, where the size and shape of the modern pelvis (a trade-off needed for walking upright), and the large size of a baby's head, make for a tight fit.

Human infants have to make several rotations through the birth canal during labour, rather than popping straight out.
By studying the few female pelvises we have of our ancient human-like relatives - only six spanning more than three million years of evolution - researchers can get an idea of what birth might have been like further back in the human family tree.

It's not the case, though, that birth became progressively more difficult during the course of human evolution.
As the University of Boston anthropologist explains, the fossil "Lucy" (Australopithecus afarensis) had a more difficult birth process than A. sediba, in terms of a tighter fit between the foetus and the birth canal, but lived about a million years earlier.

"There is a tendency to think about the evolution of human birth as a transition from an 'easy', ape-like birth to a 'difficult', modern birth," says Dr Laudicina, who reports the team's findings in the journal, Plos One.
"Instead, what we are seeing is that is not the case. "

Answering the question of when modern childbirth evolved is complicated, she says, because each fossil in the human family tree exhibited their own obstetric challenges.

And even today we see variation in how women give birth: some women have relatively easy births that take no time at all, while other women have births that last more than 20 hours with extreme pain.


https://www.bbc.com/news/science-enviro ... 733888.amp



Caz72
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25 Aug 2022, 4:31 pm

i wasnt planning on having any children but cut a long story short i got pregnant with no intentions of wanting to

i was actually alone when i gave birth alone in my apartment and then i phoned my dad and he took me and baby to hospital.luckily my son was healthy but i needed plenty of rest

it was a horrible experience giving birth it really was and i never wanted to go through that again
i was on my hands and knees giving birth on my kitchen floor it was horrible and traumatic with the pelvic pain and no gas and air to help because i was alone at home
im just glad i got a beautiful baby boy out of it
well hes 17 now but still my beautiful baby boy :heart:


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TwilightPrincess
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25 Aug 2022, 6:06 pm

^^

That sounds very scary and traumatic.



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25 Aug 2022, 6:13 pm

I've always found it weird, yet intriguing how mammals reproduce. Purposely having another organism live inside you + use your nutrients, then just pop out of you like it's nothing is a very odd reproductive strategy. :lol:



Joe90
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25 Aug 2022, 6:50 pm

Most women seem to just get pregnant and give birth like it's nothing. I mean, just think how painful it can be when taking a huge dump, sometimes it hurts and you can feel your butt tearing. Now take a live creature that's twice as big as a large poop, with limbs attached too, opening up your pelvis bones (sometimes breaking it) and squeezing through a small hole that usually tears and needs stitches. Ouch!! !! ! Why don't other women seem as fazed by this as I am? And because I've never given birth before it's probably more painful than I can even imagine.

I wish humans laid eggs instead. Even that would be painful to squeeze out but not as big as a 9-month-old foetus.


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TwilightPrincess
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25 Aug 2022, 6:59 pm

It might seem like nothing if you aren’t in the delivery room with them…

Many people overcome the fear of pain because of a deep-rooted desire to have children that’s even stronger than their fear.

Of course, accidental pregnancies happen, too.



HeroOfHyrule
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25 Aug 2022, 8:21 pm

I would honestly like to potentially have my own kids (without using surrogates or whatever), but I find pregnancy and child birth to be really scary. I have health issues that would put me and a baby at risk for complications. I'm also a bit short + don't know if my pelvis is wide enough for that (besides for how muscle and fat are distributed I don't really have "wide" hips like other females). Sometimes I feel a little jealous(?) when people are healthy enough to safely have their own kids and experience that without a second thought.



babybird
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26 Aug 2022, 5:34 pm

Caz72 wrote:
i wasnt planning on having any children but cut a long story short i got pregnant with no intentions of wanting to

i was actually alone when i gave birth alone in my apartment and then i phoned my dad and he took me and baby to hospital.luckily my son was healthy but i needed plenty of rest

it was a horrible experience giving birth it really was and i never wanted to go through that again
i was on my hands and knees giving birth on my kitchen floor it was horrible and traumatic with the pelvic pain and no gas and air to help because i was alone at home
im just glad i got a beautiful baby boy out of it
well hes 17 now but still my beautiful baby boy :heart:


AW that's sad but with a nice ending Caz.


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