Jump to content
Science Forums

Natural Instinct; child birth


Recommended Posts

There is nothing more or less natural about any of the behavioral products of evolution - that is, the ability of a bumblebee to convey where flowers are to its hive is just as natural as people's ability to learn about how to do complex things (like birth,) and vice versa.

 

It distresses me that much of the argument here attempts to put down the "human" way of doing childbirth because it is socially-mediated. So what if humans need to be taught everything by their peers? That's what we're good at, and it's why we're so successful. It's also unlikely that birth is any less socially mediated in less technological cultures. They may show "more natural" birthing behavior because there is less tolerance for them to vary from anything but the most efficient ways of giving birth - that is, any slip-ups are more dangerous in a place where you don't have access to modern medical care.

 

That said, it is entirely another hypothesis to say that medicalized birthing practices are unhealthy or damaging to women/children/families/society. This hypothesis, I'd agree with. I would avoid, however, pairing it with a statement about the "naturalness" of childbirth in developing countries and the "unnaturalness" of childbirth in post-industrial countries. This puts down both women in developing countries (whom it tokenizes as closer to nature, simpler, and perhaps more primative than women in developed countries) and women in post-industrial countries (whom it labels as unwise deserters of "the natural way".)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Moderation note: this post and responses to it have been moved to 23466, because they discuss a different topic than this thread's

 

I'm not sure if this fits here but it would seem that natural child birth is not always a painful or even unpleasant thing. I saw a show a while back where women were enjoying childbirth, orgasmic child birth. ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...