Smaller Babies.

kylith wrote: »

I was 10lbs (natural birth), but my uncle was 14lbs! A stone in weight. I suspect my grandmother was given an episiotomy for that; I know she ended her days bedridden.

cbyrd wrote: »

Until relatively recently the birthing position was squatting, with plenty of walking to enable the baby to drop.
Popular belief is it was Louis XIV who made his mistress lie down for the birth so he could watch.
Modern medical birth practice actually slows the process down. The amount of monitoring and epidurals mean when a woman in the first stage of labour should be walking around (which distracts as well) She is usually now in a hospital bed lying down with no help from gravity.

Akrasia wrote: »

Bullsh1t

PucaMama wrote: »

Is there anything they won't blame our diet for?

As another poster said it's the skull size, which is actually bigger to house a larger brain than other animals all made possible by our access to good amounts of food

It has been a very general experience until the modern system of feeding animal organs was instituted, that unless the mothers-to-be had themselves been born in the jungle the lack of development of the pelvic arch would frequently prevent normal birth of their young. In the Cleveland Zoo a very valuable tigress, that had been born in captivity, found it impossible to give birth to her young. Although a Caesarian operation was performed, she lost her life. The young also died. One of the veterinaries told me that the pelvic arch was entirely too small to allow the young to pass through the birth canal. Studies of the facial bones of this animal showed marked abnormality in development.

Wibbs wrote: »

Maybe. Price did make some very valid points about diet, especially for the times he was living in. The mothers diet might influence childbirth, not with regard to the size of her or her pelvis, but the size of the infant. IE maybe on some traditional diets the growing infant gets good levels of nutrition, while staying at a relatively low weight at birth? I dunno, just thinking out loud here.

I am informed by gynecologists that narrowing of the pelvic arch is one of the factors that is contributing to the increased difficulties that are encountered in childbirth by our modern generation.

In addition to the problems growing out of physical injuries through lack of development before birth, which express themselves as facial and other deformities, there is increasing need for concern for physical handicaps entailed in underdevelopment of the hips. The difficulty encountered at childbirth in our modern civilization has been emphasized by Dr. Kathleen Vaughan of London. In her book, "Safe Childbirth," she states that faults of development more than race modify pelvic shape.

Dr. Vaughan's work places emphasis on the necessity that the human body be properly built, especially that of the mother-to-be. She shows clearly that the shape of the pelvis is determined by the method of life and the nutrition.

In all primitive tribes living an outdoor life childbirth is easy and labor is of short duration. She shows that this is associated with a round pelvis and that the distortion of the pelvis to a flattened or kidney shape, even to a small degree, greatly reduces the capacity and therefore the ease with which the infant head may pass through the birth canal.

In Dr. Vaughan's wide experience she has observed two ways by which a rough estimate of the pelvic shape and capacity may be anticipated: first, by the gait of the individual, because the angle of the hips is determined by the shape of the pelvis; and second, by the teeth and jaws. She has recognized an association between facial and dental arch deformities and deformed pelvis.

The most interesting part of the table is actually not the life expectancy data. It also contains numbers for average stature and pelvic inlet depth. These are both markers of nutritional status during development. Pelvic inlet depth is a measure of the size of the pelvic canal through which a baby would pass during birth. It can be measured in men and women, but obviously its implications for birth only apply to women. As you can see in the table, stature and pelvic inlet depth declined quite a bit with the adoption of agriculture, and still have not reached paleolithic levels to this day.

The idea that a grain-based diet interferes with normal skeletal development isn't new. It's well-accepted in the field of archaeology that the adoption of grains coincided with a shortening of stature, thinner bones and crooked, cavity-ridden teeth. This fact is so well accepted that these sorts of skeletal changes are sometimes used as evidence that grains were adopted in a particular region historically.

Three cases of contracted pelvis in Bedouin women, appearing after two and three previous normal vaginal deliveries, are presented. In these three cases cesarean section had to be performed to deliver the babies. A roentgenray screening revealed osteomalacic pelves in all cases with typical psuedo-fractures (Milkman) and Looser zones. Pelvic deformities of the osteomalacic type are considered rare medical curiosities, and elective cesarean section is usually indicated.

It has been found that Bedouins consume large quantities of "raghif", an unleavened bread with high content of phytic acid, very similar to Indian "chapati". Phytic acid impairs the absorption of calcium from the intestine by the precipitation of an amorphous calcium phytate and causes probably some interference with the action of vitamin D. Withdrawal of this alimentation improves the illness.

kneemos wrote: »

Do you think babies are too big for women's bodies? It's a hell of a chore to carry these things never mind childbirth.
It must be an evolutionary fuk up surly given the ease other animals have in giving birth.

volchitsa wrote: »

This is complete nonsense, the bible mentions women crying out in pain during childbirth - and they were what? Bronze Age people?

And in written history there are many many men recorded as having remarried after losing sometimes more than one wife to the dangers of childbirth.

I think (but this is just my own view) that as a society we no longer put up with pain in the way past generations had to. Look at how people went around for years with rotting teeth or various skin infections etc, and it was just the way things were. So obviously women who haven't suffered as children aren't going to be able to support the pain that past generations did. But the pain is the same, it's just the perception that's changed.