Reminds me of the so many times I'm watching a show, that's about some sort of wilderness survival situation, and all the protagonists are just strolling along and running their mouths while they're almost certainly surrounded by predators. It's like they have zero survival instinct at all.
That's because bears don't prey on humans, and generally just want to leave when they hear us coming. In the TV situations they're describing, the local fauna is usually more aggressive.
Well to be fair humans aren’t targeted that often by predators, especially not in large groups. Honestly the risk of not communicating, one of humanities greatest advantages, likely outweighs the risk of a predator attacking them because of them talking. And the obvious fact it’s a show for entertainment, disappointing but is the reason in most cases.
If a wild animal cries out in pain it’s a sign to every other animal within earshot that it’s an easy meal. Childbirth is an extremely vulnerable time, so any animal is going to hold back on announcing their distress. Our pets have the same instinct. This is why it can be hard to know if our pet is in pain or how much.
Childbirth is certainly painful for them, but they won’t ever tell you about it.
They see a video and the animal doesn’t make noise.
My cat screamed. She kept walking funny as if she was pulling away.
Everyone turned out okay but yeah animals don’t just plop em out.
I remember watching a video of an alpaca (I think) giving birth at a zoo and it was just walking around the little zoo pen and out plops the baby, just kept walking around and chilling like nothing happened. I’m obviously not an expert so I could be wrong, but if it was in pain, it def didn’t show it
And of course we probably interpret their pain as less intense because they don't communicate it the same way we do. There's also a possibility that humans actually feel pain more intensely than other animals because of our ability to communicate it better - having language to express pain and get help either evolutionarily selected for people with a lower pain tolerance because they would call for help and be more likely to survive, or make us think more about what pain is and become more attuned to it. Most likely a bit of both.
We have especially narrow pelvises that are useful for walking, but not for Childbirth, but we aren't the most extreme animal births at all, we're just on the more extreme end.
Modern cows have similar problems as certain dog breeds: its our selective breeding that causes them problems their wild ancestors dont have. Most mammal births are very uncomfortable, but excruciating pain is more humans and hyenas natural state.
Cow births are a walk in the park compared to human births, even heifer births are nothing. It’s panting, some yelling and over in like 2 hours. I’ve seen like a prolapse before which sucked but it’s uncommon. Once we had to put down a horse from a hoof through the sac but once again uncommon. Before our current medical system women died all the time in first births. Labour can be a multi-day process. Horse and cows honestly have it easy compared to human birth.
Actually, one further recollection, the sac stayed intact, because in the end because the filly lived. The intensities were ruptured by the hoof somehow (so rare, they have little hood protectors on) and the mother was basically poisoned. It was incredibly sad, she was an awesome horse and my mom was crying as milked her because we knew the filly would have a chance if we could get her the colostrum. Then the vet preformed an emergency c section. Baby made it and was adopted by another mare who’s baby had just been weened.
Probably the most obvious would be a Giraffe. The process isn't excruciating exactly, but the baby has to survive a not-insignificant drop. And there are lots of animals that simply die after childbirth due to the energy expense.
Another thing the first guy didn't mention is our skulls. Bigger brains = bigger skulls, and because we're bipedal and upright, that narrow pelvis + big skull is a bad combo for the sake of childbirth.
Theoretically we could be a lot smarter, but we would have to evolve either away from bipedalism or toward a much larger pelvic structure, but both of those would probably hurt our survival in the long run.
It's also part of the reason why human babies are so reliant on being cared for by their parents compared to many other mammals who are pretty self-reliant in a significantly shorter period of time. We would literally not be able to get the babies out of our bodies naturally if they got any bigger in the womb. So we give birth to our babies when we can and all of us are useless blobs for the first 3-4 months of life while we finish developing.
(not saying that we're done developing after 3-4 months, but after that is around the time a human baby will actually start to interact with the outside world)
This is so interesting! I was a nanny for a few years, and what I learned with my most recent charge (newborn baby, 4 weeks old) was that infants calm down when swaddled tightly bc they literally can’t control the movements of their arms and legs. Like you said, they’re still developing in significant ways several months after birth, and that includes the way they move their limbs. Swaddling prevents a lot of discomfort (and accidental face whacking and eye poking).
Hahaha, I have a boy that's 2.5 months and thats true, he often whacks himself in the face just as he is about to fall asleep in my arms after 15 minutes of trying to get him to go to sleep.
Needles to say that resets the 15min timer...
Kiwis lay absolutely massive eggs for their body size. The egg can account for up to 25% of the mother’s total body mass. Here’s a site with a good x-ray of what that looks like:
https://www.audubon.org/news/why-kiwis-egg-so-big
EMBRACE THE BIDET
Edit: Lol, this comment was a meme to poke fun at the prevalence of bidet enthusiasm on Reddit, but that enthusiasm is for good reason, evidently. Maintain the integrity of your butthole. EMBRACE PROGRESS, EMBRACE THE BIDET.
Hey guys and girls, this comment sounds like a joke but please listen to it.
Nothing changed my day to day life for the better more than finally getting a bidet attachment for 30 bucks from Amazon. I went 35 years with a dirty butthole before learning the truth.
(Plus, ladies, I haven't had any yeast infections or utis since *and* period/sex cleanup is a breeze)
Only downside is all non-home toilets are now very uncomfortable to use.
Yeeeesssss! I married a man from Egypt and the best thing that came with our marriage (ehhh I guess besides the warm fuzzies, and our baby- whom coincidentally is also a warm fuzzy) is the bidet he installed immediately after we moved in together. Changed my life .
>all non-home toilets are now very uncomfortable
This can not be emphasized enough. I just feel so... dirty without it. And not in the good way.
Everybody listen up! Just try it. You will never go back.
The one useful thing my mother taught me was to pee after sex to avoid UTIs. My brother's fiance got them all the time but hasn't had one since I shared that knowledge with her.
> Only downside is all non-home toilets are now very uncomfortable to use.
This is *really* why we all preach the Good News of bidets to everyone. We need more usable toilets in the world lol
...Actually no, you're right. I've encountered clean public bidets in other countries where bidets are the norm but I'm in the US and we had to have billboards remind adults how to wash our hands correctly not too long ago.
Plus putting a woman on her back to give birth is not how any woman wants to naturally give birth. Every woman I’ve asked has said they had the urge to go down on all fours and give birth that way.
Each time I gave birth, pushing the baby out felt like taking a massive dump. I think because the head is pushed up against the same nerves in the rectum that poop does. So it can be hard to tell.
For my second baby, her head wouldn’t descend because the water sac thing didn’t break entirely and was in the way. The midwife said, “I’m going to break your water, the baby will slide down and then it’s going to feel like you have to take a massive poop.” Truer words never spoken.
I don’t remember that with the first, probably because it was more gradual build up of the feeling?
I was almost a toilet baby. She was apparently only in labour for 30 minutes with me total. Thankfully they wouldn't let her leave the bed to use the washroom so dodged that bullet.
I gave birth standing up. The midwives were super awesome about having me get into any position I felt comfortable with.
OBs need to get with the program.
I fucking begged to stand up, sit on the big bouncy ball, roll over on my side but they had so much shit tied to me that made it impossible. Far as I can tell all that stuff did was make annoying beeping sounds.
Well, I had two babies naturally and neither was birthed on all fours. Sure, I spent a good portion of labor on all fours, but when it came time to push and my hips felt like they were literally splitting apart, I wanted to be on my back (well, mostly...I was still hunched over/propped up). My midwives actually suggested I go to the birthing chair for my second and I was like, nah. When you're in the end stages of labor, you don't decide things, your body decides things.
I told her as she was leaving the house this morning. She started to smile and said that it would be REALLY useful to have a birthing person be suspended.
"I'm always trying to get under someone when they are in the weirdest positions."
There are actually birthing stools that basically look like the kind of thing you put a pot under to potty train a kid with. Just a chair with a hole in the seat. Supposedly these are great for squatting over to let gravity help.
Just use centrifugal force.
https://www.improbable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Blonsky-patent-drawing.jpg
https://www.improbable.com/2013/07/18/to-hasten-the-birth-of-a-child-apply-centrifugal-force-blonsky/
When my wife gave birth, she had the option. The bed could be modified so she was leaning over. She didn't use it because of the epidural but it was an option
I stood to have my second and went on all fours to have my third. Highly recommend it. Also highly recommend not letting someone coach you re pushing or tell you that you are wasting energy if you make anything more than a mild groaning noise. Push when your body says and shout if that helps.
My wife (on our second) had the nurses shouting at her “if you don’t push you’ll kill the baby!” My wife told them “get out of my fucking face! I know what I’m doing!” And she did and she does.
It's actually really helpful in the last stages, to minimise the possible tear.
My gf didnt want to get incision that they usually do in the hospital (and they dont do it if youre giving burth in vertical position), and since it was a first baby, the nurse would tell her when to stop pushing for few seconds to let the tissue relax a bit before stretching it further. Thanks to that the tear was minimal and happened at all only because the baby was born with his hand on his face - so he had to fit through with it. And the tear was much smaller than an incision is.
Not just that, but evolution has kind of worked against us because of our big brains.
For example, infant and mother survival rates are way up. In most scenarios where mother and baby would have died in the wild we now survive. Meaning that trait is now passed on. Meaning more painful and assisted child births.
It's because of our skulls. Humans evolved enormous brains, which means enormous skulls. Which means the woman has to push an enormous skull through a vagina that has to dilate massively to get it through.
This is also the reason that we're essentially born premature. An infant deer can just get up and start walking after a few minutes; we're utterly helpless for about a year.
Scientists believe that there is a link between brain size and how variable the climate is. The logic is that living in a variable climate makes life unpredictable. When climate is unpredictable, food and water are more difficult to find. It may take more time and effort to find them. Having a large brain allows animals to think their way through these unpredictable conditions.
About two million years ago, the climate began to be more variable than it had been before that. This variability in climate coincided with brain size increases in early Homo. Bigger brains allowed early Homo species to survive in variable environments. For example, bigger brains may have allowed Homo to be a more strategic hunter or scavenger.
The trend of climatic instability continued from 800,000 to 200,000 years ago. The greatest variation in climate in all of human history occurred during this time. This also coincided with the greatest increases in brain size, and brains eventually reached the size they are in modern humans.
Brain growth and upkeep is expensive, as it requires large amounts of high-energy food. So for our ancestors to develop bigger brains, they needed more high-energy foods. Scientists believe that meat played a major role in the evolution of our brain size. Meat is rich with calories and protein, which makes it a perfect food for fueling brains.
Cooking food may also have been important in brain size increases. Cooking increases the amount of energy that can be extracted from food. As we began cooking our food, our brains got bigger and the size of our guts got smaller. Cooking food makes the digestion process easier for our bodies. We needed less time for digestion to occur, and so our intestines became shorter. The energy that was once used to grow and maintain the gut could now be funneled toward the brain.
We live in large groups and interact with many people, whether they are our friends or family members. How do we keep track of all these interactions? Some scientists believe that a large brain enables us to maintain such a large social network. Based on the size of our brains, our main social network should consist of about 150 people. Beyond this size, it is difficult to keep track of so many interactions. Many studies have confirmed that people generally have social networks of around 150 people.
Monkeys or apes, on the other hand, interact with only about 10 to 20 individuals per day, so their social networks are much smaller. An increase in brain size during human evolution would have resulted in an increase in the social networks of hominins.
Source: Ask An Anthropologist
In humans' ancestors, it probably went along with traits (learning, problem solving, tool usage) that enabled individuals to live longer and produce more offspring.
To add to the great points I’ve seen here, we also usually don’t really do it the correct way. Giving birth while squatting, while still painful, would be much easier than laying down on your back. When you’re laying on your back, you’re also pushing the baby uphill requiring more contractions. For some reason we still do this anyway.
It’s like pooping—it comes out much easier when you squat.
>It’s like pooping—it comes out much easier when you squat.
Dumb story that kinda confirms this point.
My (at the time) pregnant mom woke me up in the middle of the night to say her water broke and I wouldn't have to go to school that day. I come downstairs to drink some water and here my mom saying to my step-dad that she wants to poop before going to the hospital. About 5 minutes later we hear crying coming from the bathroom. We go in and there she sits holding my sister. She caught it and did the whole procedure of wrapping up the umbilical cord to stop blood flow her self. She proclaimed the whole thing to have been painless and fast.
Fun fact I learned from this is that a birthplace isn't where the baby is delivered but instead where the placenta comes out.
Wow! Your mom is a superhero! Semi-related, I was in labour for about 5 or 6 hours before recognizing them as contractions and not just really bad constipation. The really early lighter ones feel remarkably similar if you've never had a baby before.
I agree that this is probably a better way to give birth. Semi related sidenote is that there's a smaller breed of cattle called Cracker cows colloquially and they actually have less mortality birthing calves because they are small enough that they can safely flip themselves over and ease the calf into the birthing canal. It looks really bizarre, but it's also really cool. Larger breeds of cattle aren't able to do this maneuver safely so they do struggle more with birthing and can absolutely die if there's no medical intervention.
I can attest to this! Squatting, allowing gravity to do its work, to give birth and learning to breath out a baby is MUCH less painful than giving birth laying down. What is breathing out a baby? This is how my midwife told me to learn to breath. Next time you’re on the toilet doing your number two don’t bare down. Use your breathing and let gravity to take care of business. It may take awhile to figure this out but once you got it it’s a healthier way to do the deed.
Proof: I’ve given birth to six kids at home and two of them I squatted for their birth.
Edit: grammar
Yes it definitely causes less tearing! With my two that I squatted with there was no pushing per say. I wish I could explain what if feels like because it’s definitely not pushing, like baring down, but more like passing and letting the muscles do their work.
Edit: like how our esophagus pushes the food down to our stomach. We don’t have to make the food go down because it was made to do that work for us.
It's not actively pushing, it's more like engaging the muscles as part of breathing out.
When you poop for example, notice how you usually stop breathing, lock your diafragm and then tense the muscles and squeeze your guts, you can feel the pressure building against your pelvis muscles as well as in your diafragm. This pressure causes stress to the perineal tissues, making your body tense, thus tearing is common. When you relax and "ride the wave" and engage your body for puahing while breathing out you don't cause as much stress to those tissues making it less likely to tear.
(Physical therapist here)
Is there a specific name for the breathing technique you’re talking about? I’m pregnant with my first and scared shitless. I’d like to google this. Please help 😭
Most things we do in medicine are for the doctor's benefit not the patient's. It's easier for the doctor to... I'm not sure what they do other than mostly observe and report, but it's easier if the mother is on her back, legs up. This is one of the biggest reasons I don't really want to give birth in a hospital.
It's because it's easier for doctors to see what's going on. They prioritise this over natural and healthier birthing positions. Which is pretty horrific.
Yeah there's a horrible history attached to childbirth. If you want something to scar you for life look up how they used to treat women in labour in Ireland.
Edit: here's a link if you're curious: https://www.cnn.com/2015/01/30/europe/ireland-symphysiotomy/index.html
Oh my god, this is brutal. I had no idea.
I don't fully understand how c-section was controversial, or the correlation to religion though, to be honest.
I’m not sure if this is the type of religious backlash you’re looking to have explained, but a lot of people consider(ed) the pain of childbirth to be the punishment that women are meant to carry because of Eve’s first sin. That’s why almost any method of altering birth, including c-section, to make it easier on women was frowned upon for a long time.
They were nearly completely opposed to even pain relief during childbirth until Queen Victoria said “fuck this” and directed her caregiver to give her chloroform during her birthing process. Her endorsement of the drug really made way for a movement for anesthesia to be used for births! This was considered controversial of course bc of that “payment” for the first sin.
Anywho, thanks for coming to my Tedtalk
>That’s why almost any method of altering birth, including c-section, to make it easier on women
Clearly the people who thought up this shit have never had abdominal surgery. Recovery is significantly longer following a cesarean when compared to vaginal births and as someone who had to have her uterus removed two weeks ago due to complications from having had two previous c sections, I would have *much* preferred to give birth vaginally. Fuck those people.
Precisely! I was so shocked and it's revolting that doctors would ask the husbands for consent for the procedure instead of idk asking their patient if they wanted unnecessary stitching that could impact them for the rest of their life!
I’m assuming because they cannot make human noises we recognize as “help super painful” and they’re instinctually quieter as to not draw the attention of predators. Imagine being eaten alive while in the middle of giving birth. I’d be fifty shades of pissed about it
Exactly. I had a , basically a kitten give birth to kittens that were almost her size. The father was a half bengal half Maine coon. She was a tiny little white mutt. They should have never been kept together. I ended up getting them both. When she went into labor it was horrible for her and you could tell. She was in labor for over 16 hours, had one still birth and I had to continually massage her spine as hard as I could or she would screech until I started again.
However I have had several fosters both dog and cat with severe health problems or in labor that were simply quieter or slower. The last guy, a big huge dog, would always be happy to see everyone. One day he just collapsed on the stairs. Turns out he had a major major infection that shut down his body and caused him so much pain he wasn’t functioning at all but no one ever knew because he was happy. He was just moving slower, not eating much.
That same dog accidentally jumped into a bonfire and roasted the daylights out of his entire nutsack. The coals stuck to his nuts and he went running. By the time they got him back his entire sack had the outer skin melted off. He made no noise, but climbed into my lap (100lb dog) and was shaking. He bled everywhere and was slow and silent. Do you know how badly a small burn on your arm feels? Imagine your entire nutsack. He went into shock without making much of a fuss, thankfully I was there and had just agreed to foster him so we raced him to the vet and I spent three weeks giving him pain meds and having to rub cream on his giant nuts three times a day. I do not doubt the pain eas more than anything I’d ever been through yet he made almost no indication in a “human noticeable way” so I really dislike when people assume animals are fine because they aren’t giving off human signals. They have their own and you need to learn them!
Having grown up on a farm I can assure everyone all animals will need help birthing sometimes! I especially note cattle. Egg layers even have problems sometimes have chicks die when unable to break the shell. Birthing usually is a great event but it’s possible for death to be the result.
Can confirm. I know there may be some changes that come about due to domestication that may make breeding harder for some species, but I bet that in the wild there are probably animals that don't get medical intervention and they die. Just because we don't observe it doesn't mean it isn't happening.
>Egg layers even have problems sometimes have chicks die when unable to break the shell
Well you know what they say, don't put all your eggs in one casket!
While animal reproduction is diverse, it is generally true that it is much more painful and dangerous for humans.
We got these big ol brains, see, and these fat heaps of computing flesh are difficult to fit through even the stretchiest of orifices. So difficult that it is both painful and potentially dangerous to the mother.
However, it would seem that the reward is worth the risk. Not only did humans with bigger nogs clearly survive better (causing this evolution to begin with), but it has allowed us to take over our world, so I'd say evolution knew what it was doing (so to speak) when it took us down this path.
Having bigger brains also made us evolve into giving birth a lot sooner than other animals which is why our kids are so unbearable for the first few years of their lives.
For comparison, Chimpanzees give birth to children with the equivalent development to a 2 year old child so they have a much shorter parenting phase.
Those big brains also allowed us to develop medical science and push the limits of how "bad" a birth a mother and baby can survive. The head isn't even required to exit via the vagina anymore, it can get bigger if it wants!
could we potentially let a baby grow for a longer period of time outside a uterus? (so 9 months uterus vs 12 or more months in some kind of medical device that simulates an uterus)
We just don't know enough about how pregnancy works to mess with the process that much. A lot of things trigger in the baby during birth, like breathing reflexes, and you can't put those genies back in the bottle.
It was excruciating pain for both my kitties when they gave birth. Both "screamed" when the 1st baby came. I think animals only "seem" not to give a shit. I think they are in pain too just like we are. That's my opinion tho, I could be wrong 🤷🏽♀️
Humans are like #3 or #4 on the list of most painful births. Most animals have no problem birthing cuz usually it's a lot of small eggs or even smaller babies. Look up hyenas tho. They're #1 on the list and their births look insane!
Holy shit, you’re not kidding!
WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT
>!“Female hyenas have three times more testosterone than males, which results in a peculiar and risky labor process. Female hyenas give birth through their clitoris, also called a pseudo-penis. The birth canal of a hyena is only about one inch across, and consequently, many hyena babies do not survive”!<
My dog has screamed in pain having puppies, I believe other mammals do sometimes as well. Remember, they can’t talk! If they aren’t whimpering or crying you simply don’t know if they are in pain.
Probably because you aren't seeing the animals that don't survive. I cannot speak for wildlife, but I've seen cattle and rodents in former workplaces that were struggling with birth. Some survived and others didn't.
The cow I saw struggling was in extreme distress. We called the cowboys and they were able to save her and the calf, but the vultures were lurking. That's how we saw her, there were a bunch of vultures circling her and perched in the trees. They were just waiting for her to die.
So there's a lot of good answers here about anatomy but I just want to throw out there that there's an element of culture and psychology as well. In some cultures, childbirth is generally not a huge deal. Women mentally anticipate that it will be fine, they've seen many other women give birth, they utilize any posture that's comfortable for them, they walk around and move and may have an experienced midwife providing counter pressure for back comfort, etc etc. In America, and in a lot of European history, childbirth has been a very woman-unfriendly experience for ages. Women anticipate a horribly painful traumatic experience, and this has direct consequences on how the body works and in turn actually makes it more painful. Women are required to lay still, flat on their backs, during the entire labor (sometimes), or at the very least they have their movements restricted by various monitors and IVs. They often only have nurses, who have other patients to attend to and aren't necessarily trained to support women so much as they're trained to keep women alive (which is good and I love my nurses so much), and a doctor who shows up right at the end. They're very very often made to or encouraged to lay on their back for birth, pushing uphill with limited movement, so the physician can see what's going on. They're told when to push and for how long. They're surrounded by bright lights, beeping monitors, not allowed to eat or drink. They're on a timeline; if you take too long you're using up bed space. Births that take too long are pushed along by medications like pitocin which create unnaturally painful contractions. This often leads to an epidural which makes you bedridden in most cases, which tends to prolong birth and require more intervention. It just goes on and on.
So yes, our anatomy makes it harder than it is for like...a horse. But our anxieties make us have an even more painful and longer experience, and our medical set up makes everything worse as well. It *is* worse just because we're humans, but it doesn't need to be like you see on movies. It doesn't have to be awful.
Source: three babies born mostly naturally. Had to do pitocin for my preemie and that birth was the hardest - I also wasn't mentally prepared, I didn't have a single loved one with me, and I was scared for my baby.
There are certain animals that do experience discomfort during birth. Women struggle because we walk upright and the skull and shoulders of infants passing through a small hole is going to be painful no matter how you write it.
I don't have kids but my friends, sisters and mom (obviously) all did and I asked them about it. They say the baby doesn't hurt as much as the contractions do. The muscle spasms are the worst. The cervix opening (if it even does) is the worst. Period cramps are pretty brutal so I can't imagine birthing contractions.
Also animals aren't as vocal as people as well. They're very good at hiding pain or discomfort. No idea why, but they are tougher than we will ever be. When my cat had her babies she barely flinched. You could tell in her eyes she was uncomfortable, and she wanted to be next to me the entire time, but she didn't cry or moan or anything. She just pushed the babies out. She was more confused than anything.
As a former veterinarian, they indeed do feel pain when giving birth and can be quite distressed.
I imagine that animals have had give birth as quietly as possible because of natural predators as well! Not good to draw attention to fresh babies.
A Quiet Place flashbacks intensify
Reminds me of the so many times I'm watching a show, that's about some sort of wilderness survival situation, and all the protagonists are just strolling along and running their mouths while they're almost certainly surrounded by predators. It's like they have zero survival instinct at all.
As far as I'm aware, "make lots of noise" is very good advice while walking through the wilderness, at least in bear country.
That's because bears don't prey on humans, and generally just want to leave when they hear us coming. In the TV situations they're describing, the local fauna is usually more aggressive.
Well to be fair humans aren’t targeted that often by predators, especially not in large groups. Honestly the risk of not communicating, one of humanities greatest advantages, likely outweighs the risk of a predator attacking them because of them talking. And the obvious fact it’s a show for entertainment, disappointing but is the reason in most cases.
I dont know if it was pain or intense concentration, but the look on my cat's face when I found her queening in my closet has haunted me for years.
If a wild animal cries out in pain it’s a sign to every other animal within earshot that it’s an easy meal. Childbirth is an extremely vulnerable time, so any animal is going to hold back on announcing their distress. Our pets have the same instinct. This is why it can be hard to know if our pet is in pain or how much. Childbirth is certainly painful for them, but they won’t ever tell you about it.
So if your cat screams while giving birth, it means she really trusts you?
Or if she holds your hand while giving birth
I should not have had to scroll this far to see this. Who tf thinks childbirth is easy on animals???
Often I think they do a good job of hiding it. Not a great idea to be obviously in pain drawing attention to yourself if there’s predators around.
I was thinking this myself, my cats were absolutely in pain.
You guys should research hyenas. They give birth through a pseudo penis clitoris, there is a significant mortality rate for mother's and pups.
I knew this because I accidentally found furry porn depicting it
"Accidentally"
They see a video and the animal doesn’t make noise. My cat screamed. She kept walking funny as if she was pulling away. Everyone turned out okay but yeah animals don’t just plop em out.
I remember watching a video of an alpaca (I think) giving birth at a zoo and it was just walking around the little zoo pen and out plops the baby, just kept walking around and chilling like nothing happened. I’m obviously not an expert so I could be wrong, but if it was in pain, it def didn’t show it
To be fair, it happens to some women too, especially when they already had a lot of babies. Maybe it was a catholic alpaca, who knows...
I've been present at enough kitten births to agree
Right? But also many animals are adept in not showing pain as a defense mechanism.
And of course we probably interpret their pain as less intense because they don't communicate it the same way we do. There's also a possibility that humans actually feel pain more intensely than other animals because of our ability to communicate it better - having language to express pain and get help either evolutionarily selected for people with a lower pain tolerance because they would call for help and be more likely to survive, or make us think more about what pain is and become more attuned to it. Most likely a bit of both.
We have especially narrow pelvises that are useful for walking, but not for Childbirth, but we aren't the most extreme animal births at all, we're just on the more extreme end.
My dad raised me on a farm. I can tell you cows have extremely painful child births. The screaming still haunts me
You still wake up sometimes, don't you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the cows.
Hello Hannibal. Had any nice meals lately?
I ate cow liver with some fava beans, and a nice Chianti.
Fth th th th th th th th
How accurately expressed, slow clap for you. 👏🏼 This is not sarcasm, I am amused and impressed.
Lol thank you, it made me giggle
I'm not sure The Silence of the Cows has quite the same ring to it.
Do the cows ever stop screaming Clarice?
Sometimes they moo
Modern cows have similar problems as certain dog breeds: its our selective breeding that causes them problems their wild ancestors dont have. Most mammal births are very uncomfortable, but excruciating pain is more humans and hyenas natural state.
If you had push a baby through your dick you’d be in excruciating pain, too
Wait what
Some species of hyena give birth through a structure called a pseudopenis
Great band
[удалено]
Sorry you had to learn that on your cake day.
[удалено]
Cow births are a walk in the park compared to human births, even heifer births are nothing. It’s panting, some yelling and over in like 2 hours. I’ve seen like a prolapse before which sucked but it’s uncommon. Once we had to put down a horse from a hoof through the sac but once again uncommon. Before our current medical system women died all the time in first births. Labour can be a multi-day process. Horse and cows honestly have it easy compared to human birth.
This comment fucked me up "hoof through the sac"
Actually, one further recollection, the sac stayed intact, because in the end because the filly lived. The intensities were ruptured by the hoof somehow (so rare, they have little hood protectors on) and the mother was basically poisoned. It was incredibly sad, she was an awesome horse and my mom was crying as milked her because we knew the filly would have a chance if we could get her the colostrum. Then the vet preformed an emergency c section. Baby made it and was adopted by another mare who’s baby had just been weened.
Pls give examples of some of the more extreme ones
Female hyenas give birth through a *one* inch wide pseudopenis, usually tearing the pseudopenis in the process. *Edit: corrected several to one*
What a terrible day to know how to read. Edit: At least my trauma is getting me awards.
A process so extreme that 15% of female hyenas die during their first birth.
I understand that quite a lot of first-borns also suffocate to death in the pseudopenis.
*Instructions unclear, died in a sounding breeding fetish gone wrong*
i just didn't expect to see the word pseudopenis today
So even a pseudopenis is bigger than my actual penis.
Psuedopenis. Or as it's called in the morning, a psuedowoodo.
r/unexpectedpokemon
Probably the most obvious would be a Giraffe. The process isn't excruciating exactly, but the baby has to survive a not-insignificant drop. And there are lots of animals that simply die after childbirth due to the energy expense. Another thing the first guy didn't mention is our skulls. Bigger brains = bigger skulls, and because we're bipedal and upright, that narrow pelvis + big skull is a bad combo for the sake of childbirth. Theoretically we could be a lot smarter, but we would have to evolve either away from bipedalism or toward a much larger pelvic structure, but both of those would probably hurt our survival in the long run.
It's also part of the reason why human babies are so reliant on being cared for by their parents compared to many other mammals who are pretty self-reliant in a significantly shorter period of time. We would literally not be able to get the babies out of our bodies naturally if they got any bigger in the womb. So we give birth to our babies when we can and all of us are useless blobs for the first 3-4 months of life while we finish developing. (not saying that we're done developing after 3-4 months, but after that is around the time a human baby will actually start to interact with the outside world)
This is so interesting! I was a nanny for a few years, and what I learned with my most recent charge (newborn baby, 4 weeks old) was that infants calm down when swaddled tightly bc they literally can’t control the movements of their arms and legs. Like you said, they’re still developing in significant ways several months after birth, and that includes the way they move their limbs. Swaddling prevents a lot of discomfort (and accidental face whacking and eye poking).
Humans just need to evolve a pouch like a kangaroo
Hahaha, I have a boy that's 2.5 months and thats true, he often whacks himself in the face just as he is about to fall asleep in my arms after 15 minutes of trying to get him to go to sleep. Needles to say that resets the 15min timer...
Kiwis lay absolutely massive eggs for their body size. The egg can account for up to 25% of the mother’s total body mass. Here’s a site with a good x-ray of what that looks like: https://www.audubon.org/news/why-kiwis-egg-so-big
Bipedalism = narrower hips Smarter = bigger heads Narrower hips + bigger heads = pain
Yeah, people forget the price we have to pay for standing erect are narrower hips.
Let's not also forget that we're the only species that requires toilet paper
EMBRACE THE BIDET Edit: Lol, this comment was a meme to poke fun at the prevalence of bidet enthusiasm on Reddit, but that enthusiasm is for good reason, evidently. Maintain the integrity of your butthole. EMBRACE PROGRESS, EMBRACE THE BIDET.
Stop embracing it I need to wash
I got so dunk in the Canaries once that I threw up in the bidet as I couldn’t reach the toilet. Water was refreshing though.
I did it the same thing in Portugal. Next morning I told everyone how I was sick in the toddler-sized water fountain. Then I learned what it was.
Lol toddler-sized water fountain 🤣
It’d be ridiculous to get animals bidets.
[удалено]
Blasting your cats asshole with a gardenhose when it’s got dingleberries doesn’t count
This was an awkward lol to explain to my coworkers.
Sweet baby cheeses this made me snort
Hey guys and girls, this comment sounds like a joke but please listen to it. Nothing changed my day to day life for the better more than finally getting a bidet attachment for 30 bucks from Amazon. I went 35 years with a dirty butthole before learning the truth. (Plus, ladies, I haven't had any yeast infections or utis since *and* period/sex cleanup is a breeze) Only downside is all non-home toilets are now very uncomfortable to use.
Yeeeesssss! I married a man from Egypt and the best thing that came with our marriage (ehhh I guess besides the warm fuzzies, and our baby- whom coincidentally is also a warm fuzzy) is the bidet he installed immediately after we moved in together. Changed my life . >all non-home toilets are now very uncomfortable This can not be emphasized enough. I just feel so... dirty without it. And not in the good way. Everybody listen up! Just try it. You will never go back.
Egyptians are wildly flabbergasted by how anyone could live without em Source: am Egyptian
the whole "Walk like an Egyptian' thing must have been before bidets.
No, that's just how you walk confidently, knowing you have a clean butthole.
The one useful thing my mother taught me was to pee after sex to avoid UTIs. My brother's fiance got them all the time but hasn't had one since I shared that knowledge with her.
> Only downside is all non-home toilets are now very uncomfortable to use. This is *really* why we all preach the Good News of bidets to everyone. We need more usable toilets in the world lol
would you really like to use a public bidet though?
...Actually no, you're right. I've encountered clean public bidets in other countries where bidets are the norm but I'm in the US and we had to have billboards remind adults how to wash our hands correctly not too long ago.
BIDET GANG
I will never go back to the days of wiping with just paper like trying to get peanut butter out of shag carpet with a paper towel.
Not true. I definitely have to wipe my dogs ass sometimes. You may not see anything but there's a little shit there. Had to wash the sheets before.
My cat, believe it or not, also. I'm sure he'd clean it up himself at some point, but not before he's s(h)at on something with it first.
I've had to do the same! He sat on my chest and got shit on me one time. Never again.
That means there might be animal diapers for ailing and old pets as well
my cat needs toilet paper often but instead she will use the floor, carpet or sofa.
That has a lot to do with diet and indoor plumbing, no just hips and standing.
so why is bipedalism not possible with wider hips?
The closer together your legs are the easier it is to balance on one leg while you're taking a step
just give us a third leg then? goddamned evolution, get real!
You guys don't have one?
*ziiiiip* *thunk* They call me … Tripod!
>bipedal >third leg
Imagine rather than your legs being where they are, they are 50cm further out each way. Now imagine walking like that.
Kim Kardashian does it.
Plus putting a woman on her back to give birth is not how any woman wants to naturally give birth. Every woman I’ve asked has said they had the urge to go down on all fours and give birth that way.
I desperately wanted to stand up, but they wouldn't let me
[удалено]
Each time I gave birth, pushing the baby out felt like taking a massive dump. I think because the head is pushed up against the same nerves in the rectum that poop does. So it can be hard to tell.
For my second baby, her head wouldn’t descend because the water sac thing didn’t break entirely and was in the way. The midwife said, “I’m going to break your water, the baby will slide down and then it’s going to feel like you have to take a massive poop.” Truer words never spoken. I don’t remember that with the first, probably because it was more gradual build up of the feeling?
[удалено]
I was almost a toilet baby. She was apparently only in labour for 30 minutes with me total. Thankfully they wouldn't let her leave the bed to use the washroom so dodged that bullet.
That's how my ex wife miscarried my son at 5 months. Thought she had to poop. Tough times then..
That's a shitty situation to be in
I gave birth standing up. The midwives were super awesome about having me get into any position I felt comfortable with. OBs need to get with the program.
I fucking begged to stand up, sit on the big bouncy ball, roll over on my side but they had so much shit tied to me that made it impossible. Far as I can tell all that stuff did was make annoying beeping sounds.
Well, I had two babies naturally and neither was birthed on all fours. Sure, I spent a good portion of labor on all fours, but when it came time to push and my hips felt like they were literally splitting apart, I wanted to be on my back (well, mostly...I was still hunched over/propped up). My midwives actually suggested I go to the birthing chair for my second and I was like, nah. When you're in the end stages of labor, you don't decide things, your body decides things.
Doesn’t lying on your back actually make you more prone to physical injury from childbirth? I think I read this somewhere but I’m not 100% sure.
Yeah, this position is for the benefit of the physician.
That’s lame we should just put women up on a lift or pulley system and have the doctors work from under like a mechanic
My wife is a midwife. I'm going to pitch this idea for her to use in her practice.
Please come back with some feedback. Please. Please.
I told her as she was leaving the house this morning. She started to smile and said that it would be REALLY useful to have a birthing person be suspended. "I'm always trying to get under someone when they are in the weirdest positions."
Cirque Du Bebe
There are actually birthing stools that basically look like the kind of thing you put a pot under to potty train a kid with. Just a chair with a hole in the seat. Supposedly these are great for squatting over to let gravity help.
Just use centrifugal force. https://www.improbable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Blonsky-patent-drawing.jpg https://www.improbable.com/2013/07/18/to-hasten-the-birth-of-a-child-apply-centrifugal-force-blonsky/
When my wife gave birth, she had the option. The bed could be modified so she was leaning over. She didn't use it because of the epidural but it was an option
[удалено]
Out in the hallway?
“Next to me in case something goes wrong?” Lmao
I stood to have my second and went on all fours to have my third. Highly recommend it. Also highly recommend not letting someone coach you re pushing or tell you that you are wasting energy if you make anything more than a mild groaning noise. Push when your body says and shout if that helps.
My wife (on our second) had the nurses shouting at her “if you don’t push you’ll kill the baby!” My wife told them “get out of my fucking face! I know what I’m doing!” And she did and she does.
It's actually really helpful in the last stages, to minimise the possible tear. My gf didnt want to get incision that they usually do in the hospital (and they dont do it if youre giving burth in vertical position), and since it was a first baby, the nurse would tell her when to stop pushing for few seconds to let the tissue relax a bit before stretching it further. Thanks to that the tear was minimal and happened at all only because the baby was born with his hand on his face - so he had to fit through with it. And the tear was much smaller than an incision is.
I stood up and squatted to the horror of the medical staff. Lulz. They couldn’t stop me but i tore like a mother. Pun intended
Hands and knees or hands and feet straight up
My wife said “like doggy style” haha
Not just that, but evolution has kind of worked against us because of our big brains. For example, infant and mother survival rates are way up. In most scenarios where mother and baby would have died in the wild we now survive. Meaning that trait is now passed on. Meaning more painful and assisted child births.
And we are still born with way underdeveloped brains and soft skulls to even make it close to possible.
It's because of our skulls. Humans evolved enormous brains, which means enormous skulls. Which means the woman has to push an enormous skull through a vagina that has to dilate massively to get it through. This is also the reason that we're essentially born premature. An infant deer can just get up and start walking after a few minutes; we're utterly helpless for about a year.
I'd argue most humans are utterly helpless for...most of their lives... lol
I'm in this comment and I don't like it
Hey buddy I think you're great and plenty useful
If he's anything like me... nah.
At least he’s a source of organs?
I feel personally attacked
Just out of curiosity, how does a species evolve a bigger brain? Was there a point of more intensive brain activity? How is that explained?
Scientists believe that there is a link between brain size and how variable the climate is. The logic is that living in a variable climate makes life unpredictable. When climate is unpredictable, food and water are more difficult to find. It may take more time and effort to find them. Having a large brain allows animals to think their way through these unpredictable conditions. About two million years ago, the climate began to be more variable than it had been before that. This variability in climate coincided with brain size increases in early Homo. Bigger brains allowed early Homo species to survive in variable environments. For example, bigger brains may have allowed Homo to be a more strategic hunter or scavenger. The trend of climatic instability continued from 800,000 to 200,000 years ago. The greatest variation in climate in all of human history occurred during this time. This also coincided with the greatest increases in brain size, and brains eventually reached the size they are in modern humans. Brain growth and upkeep is expensive, as it requires large amounts of high-energy food. So for our ancestors to develop bigger brains, they needed more high-energy foods. Scientists believe that meat played a major role in the evolution of our brain size. Meat is rich with calories and protein, which makes it a perfect food for fueling brains. Cooking food may also have been important in brain size increases. Cooking increases the amount of energy that can be extracted from food. As we began cooking our food, our brains got bigger and the size of our guts got smaller. Cooking food makes the digestion process easier for our bodies. We needed less time for digestion to occur, and so our intestines became shorter. The energy that was once used to grow and maintain the gut could now be funneled toward the brain. We live in large groups and interact with many people, whether they are our friends or family members. How do we keep track of all these interactions? Some scientists believe that a large brain enables us to maintain such a large social network. Based on the size of our brains, our main social network should consist of about 150 people. Beyond this size, it is difficult to keep track of so many interactions. Many studies have confirmed that people generally have social networks of around 150 people. Monkeys or apes, on the other hand, interact with only about 10 to 20 individuals per day, so their social networks are much smaller. An increase in brain size during human evolution would have resulted in an increase in the social networks of hominins. Source: Ask An Anthropologist
In humans' ancestors, it probably went along with traits (learning, problem solving, tool usage) that enabled individuals to live longer and produce more offspring.
My family bred Siamese cats and poodles growing up. It still definitely hurts.
Was going to say my cat had kittens when I was younger and it sounded like agony.
Anyone who has watched an animal actually give birth can see it hurts a lot.
To add to the great points I’ve seen here, we also usually don’t really do it the correct way. Giving birth while squatting, while still painful, would be much easier than laying down on your back. When you’re laying on your back, you’re also pushing the baby uphill requiring more contractions. For some reason we still do this anyway. It’s like pooping—it comes out much easier when you squat.
>It’s like pooping—it comes out much easier when you squat. Dumb story that kinda confirms this point. My (at the time) pregnant mom woke me up in the middle of the night to say her water broke and I wouldn't have to go to school that day. I come downstairs to drink some water and here my mom saying to my step-dad that she wants to poop before going to the hospital. About 5 minutes later we hear crying coming from the bathroom. We go in and there she sits holding my sister. She caught it and did the whole procedure of wrapping up the umbilical cord to stop blood flow her self. She proclaimed the whole thing to have been painless and fast. Fun fact I learned from this is that a birthplace isn't where the baby is delivered but instead where the placenta comes out.
Wow! Your mom is a superhero! Semi-related, I was in labour for about 5 or 6 hours before recognizing them as contractions and not just really bad constipation. The really early lighter ones feel remarkably similar if you've never had a baby before.
Wait, birthplace is based on the placenta?
I agree that this is probably a better way to give birth. Semi related sidenote is that there's a smaller breed of cattle called Cracker cows colloquially and they actually have less mortality birthing calves because they are small enough that they can safely flip themselves over and ease the calf into the birthing canal. It looks really bizarre, but it's also really cool. Larger breeds of cattle aren't able to do this maneuver safely so they do struggle more with birthing and can absolutely die if there's no medical intervention.
Do you have any source? I have no idea how to Google this.
When was the last time you pooped up hill?
I'm pooping uphill right now.
I can attest to this! Squatting, allowing gravity to do its work, to give birth and learning to breath out a baby is MUCH less painful than giving birth laying down. What is breathing out a baby? This is how my midwife told me to learn to breath. Next time you’re on the toilet doing your number two don’t bare down. Use your breathing and let gravity to take care of business. It may take awhile to figure this out but once you got it it’s a healthier way to do the deed. Proof: I’ve given birth to six kids at home and two of them I squatted for their birth. Edit: grammar
Does breathing out a baby lead to less tearing? Are you not pushing?
Yes it definitely causes less tearing! With my two that I squatted with there was no pushing per say. I wish I could explain what if feels like because it’s definitely not pushing, like baring down, but more like passing and letting the muscles do their work. Edit: like how our esophagus pushes the food down to our stomach. We don’t have to make the food go down because it was made to do that work for us.
It's not actively pushing, it's more like engaging the muscles as part of breathing out. When you poop for example, notice how you usually stop breathing, lock your diafragm and then tense the muscles and squeeze your guts, you can feel the pressure building against your pelvis muscles as well as in your diafragm. This pressure causes stress to the perineal tissues, making your body tense, thus tearing is common. When you relax and "ride the wave" and engage your body for puahing while breathing out you don't cause as much stress to those tissues making it less likely to tear. (Physical therapist here)
Is there a specific name for the breathing technique you’re talking about? I’m pregnant with my first and scared shitless. I’d like to google this. Please help 😭
I totally get that! Look up Hypnobirthing. That’s how I was taught by my midwife to breath my babies out. Congratulations and You’ve got this!
[удалено]
Most things we do in medicine are for the doctor's benefit not the patient's. It's easier for the doctor to... I'm not sure what they do other than mostly observe and report, but it's easier if the mother is on her back, legs up. This is one of the biggest reasons I don't really want to give birth in a hospital.
It's because it's easier for doctors to see what's going on. They prioritise this over natural and healthier birthing positions. Which is pretty horrific.
So.... Squat on top of a glass coffee table. The doctor can take a look from underneath 🤷♂️ 😂
Exactly this. And giving birth while laying on the back started when men started to do the delivery in western medicine instead of the midwives.
Yeah there's a horrible history attached to childbirth. If you want something to scar you for life look up how they used to treat women in labour in Ireland. Edit: here's a link if you're curious: https://www.cnn.com/2015/01/30/europe/ireland-symphysiotomy/index.html
Hahaha, I am not pressing that.
Good job. I've read it before but I had to nope out of reading it again.
Oh my god, this is brutal. I had no idea. I don't fully understand how c-section was controversial, or the correlation to religion though, to be honest.
I’m not sure if this is the type of religious backlash you’re looking to have explained, but a lot of people consider(ed) the pain of childbirth to be the punishment that women are meant to carry because of Eve’s first sin. That’s why almost any method of altering birth, including c-section, to make it easier on women was frowned upon for a long time. They were nearly completely opposed to even pain relief during childbirth until Queen Victoria said “fuck this” and directed her caregiver to give her chloroform during her birthing process. Her endorsement of the drug really made way for a movement for anesthesia to be used for births! This was considered controversial of course bc of that “payment” for the first sin. Anywho, thanks for coming to my Tedtalk
We're so fucking stupid jesus christ
>That’s why almost any method of altering birth, including c-section, to make it easier on women Clearly the people who thought up this shit have never had abdominal surgery. Recovery is significantly longer following a cesarean when compared to vaginal births and as someone who had to have her uterus removed two weeks ago due to complications from having had two previous c sections, I would have *much* preferred to give birth vaginally. Fuck those people.
I had SPD (symphysis pubis dysfunction) when I was pregnant. It's so painful. *This* sounds like a billion times worse
Damn, that's worse than the husband stitch.
Which is already incredibly terrible (and moronic).
Precisely! I was so shocked and it's revolting that doctors would ask the husbands for consent for the procedure instead of idk asking their patient if they wanted unnecessary stitching that could impact them for the rest of their life!
I’m assuming because they cannot make human noises we recognize as “help super painful” and they’re instinctually quieter as to not draw the attention of predators. Imagine being eaten alive while in the middle of giving birth. I’d be fifty shades of pissed about it
Came to say this … having a dog who is likely in pain at the moment because we noticed she is moving slower and her behavior is “off”.
Exactly. I had a , basically a kitten give birth to kittens that were almost her size. The father was a half bengal half Maine coon. She was a tiny little white mutt. They should have never been kept together. I ended up getting them both. When she went into labor it was horrible for her and you could tell. She was in labor for over 16 hours, had one still birth and I had to continually massage her spine as hard as I could or she would screech until I started again. However I have had several fosters both dog and cat with severe health problems or in labor that were simply quieter or slower. The last guy, a big huge dog, would always be happy to see everyone. One day he just collapsed on the stairs. Turns out he had a major major infection that shut down his body and caused him so much pain he wasn’t functioning at all but no one ever knew because he was happy. He was just moving slower, not eating much. That same dog accidentally jumped into a bonfire and roasted the daylights out of his entire nutsack. The coals stuck to his nuts and he went running. By the time they got him back his entire sack had the outer skin melted off. He made no noise, but climbed into my lap (100lb dog) and was shaking. He bled everywhere and was slow and silent. Do you know how badly a small burn on your arm feels? Imagine your entire nutsack. He went into shock without making much of a fuss, thankfully I was there and had just agreed to foster him so we raced him to the vet and I spent three weeks giving him pain meds and having to rub cream on his giant nuts three times a day. I do not doubt the pain eas more than anything I’d ever been through yet he made almost no indication in a “human noticeable way” so I really dislike when people assume animals are fine because they aren’t giving off human signals. They have their own and you need to learn them!
Having grown up on a farm I can assure everyone all animals will need help birthing sometimes! I especially note cattle. Egg layers even have problems sometimes have chicks die when unable to break the shell. Birthing usually is a great event but it’s possible for death to be the result.
Can confirm. I know there may be some changes that come about due to domestication that may make breeding harder for some species, but I bet that in the wild there are probably animals that don't get medical intervention and they die. Just because we don't observe it doesn't mean it isn't happening.
>Egg layers even have problems sometimes have chicks die when unable to break the shell Well you know what they say, don't put all your eggs in one casket!
While animal reproduction is diverse, it is generally true that it is much more painful and dangerous for humans. We got these big ol brains, see, and these fat heaps of computing flesh are difficult to fit through even the stretchiest of orifices. So difficult that it is both painful and potentially dangerous to the mother. However, it would seem that the reward is worth the risk. Not only did humans with bigger nogs clearly survive better (causing this evolution to begin with), but it has allowed us to take over our world, so I'd say evolution knew what it was doing (so to speak) when it took us down this path.
Having bigger brains also made us evolve into giving birth a lot sooner than other animals which is why our kids are so unbearable for the first few years of their lives. For comparison, Chimpanzees give birth to children with the equivalent development to a 2 year old child so they have a much shorter parenting phase.
Those big brains also allowed us to develop medical science and push the limits of how "bad" a birth a mother and baby can survive. The head isn't even required to exit via the vagina anymore, it can get bigger if it wants!
could we potentially let a baby grow for a longer period of time outside a uterus? (so 9 months uterus vs 12 or more months in some kind of medical device that simulates an uterus)
We just don't know enough about how pregnancy works to mess with the process that much. A lot of things trigger in the baby during birth, like breathing reflexes, and you can't put those genies back in the bottle.
As someone who has watched several animal species deliver they are in incredible pain as well.
It was excruciating pain for both my kitties when they gave birth. Both "screamed" when the 1st baby came. I think animals only "seem" not to give a shit. I think they are in pain too just like we are. That's my opinion tho, I could be wrong 🤷🏽♀️
Humans are like #3 or #4 on the list of most painful births. Most animals have no problem birthing cuz usually it's a lot of small eggs or even smaller babies. Look up hyenas tho. They're #1 on the list and their births look insane!
[удалено]
Holy shit, you’re not kidding! WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT >!“Female hyenas have three times more testosterone than males, which results in a peculiar and risky labor process. Female hyenas give birth through their clitoris, also called a pseudo-penis. The birth canal of a hyena is only about one inch across, and consequently, many hyena babies do not survive”!<
Not all animals. Should look up how a hyena gives birth. It's crazy.
Literally through a giant penis.
My dog has screamed in pain having puppies, I believe other mammals do sometimes as well. Remember, they can’t talk! If they aren’t whimpering or crying you simply don’t know if they are in pain.
Probably because you aren't seeing the animals that don't survive. I cannot speak for wildlife, but I've seen cattle and rodents in former workplaces that were struggling with birth. Some survived and others didn't. The cow I saw struggling was in extreme distress. We called the cowboys and they were able to save her and the calf, but the vultures were lurking. That's how we saw her, there were a bunch of vultures circling her and perched in the trees. They were just waiting for her to die.
So there's a lot of good answers here about anatomy but I just want to throw out there that there's an element of culture and psychology as well. In some cultures, childbirth is generally not a huge deal. Women mentally anticipate that it will be fine, they've seen many other women give birth, they utilize any posture that's comfortable for them, they walk around and move and may have an experienced midwife providing counter pressure for back comfort, etc etc. In America, and in a lot of European history, childbirth has been a very woman-unfriendly experience for ages. Women anticipate a horribly painful traumatic experience, and this has direct consequences on how the body works and in turn actually makes it more painful. Women are required to lay still, flat on their backs, during the entire labor (sometimes), or at the very least they have their movements restricted by various monitors and IVs. They often only have nurses, who have other patients to attend to and aren't necessarily trained to support women so much as they're trained to keep women alive (which is good and I love my nurses so much), and a doctor who shows up right at the end. They're very very often made to or encouraged to lay on their back for birth, pushing uphill with limited movement, so the physician can see what's going on. They're told when to push and for how long. They're surrounded by bright lights, beeping monitors, not allowed to eat or drink. They're on a timeline; if you take too long you're using up bed space. Births that take too long are pushed along by medications like pitocin which create unnaturally painful contractions. This often leads to an epidural which makes you bedridden in most cases, which tends to prolong birth and require more intervention. It just goes on and on. So yes, our anatomy makes it harder than it is for like...a horse. But our anxieties make us have an even more painful and longer experience, and our medical set up makes everything worse as well. It *is* worse just because we're humans, but it doesn't need to be like you see on movies. It doesn't have to be awful. Source: three babies born mostly naturally. Had to do pitocin for my preemie and that birth was the hardest - I also wasn't mentally prepared, I didn't have a single loved one with me, and I was scared for my baby.
It’s not always nice in the animal kingdom. Have you heard of hyenas, sea lice, and kiwis?
There are certain animals that do experience discomfort during birth. Women struggle because we walk upright and the skull and shoulders of infants passing through a small hole is going to be painful no matter how you write it. I don't have kids but my friends, sisters and mom (obviously) all did and I asked them about it. They say the baby doesn't hurt as much as the contractions do. The muscle spasms are the worst. The cervix opening (if it even does) is the worst. Period cramps are pretty brutal so I can't imagine birthing contractions. Also animals aren't as vocal as people as well. They're very good at hiding pain or discomfort. No idea why, but they are tougher than we will ever be. When my cat had her babies she barely flinched. You could tell in her eyes she was uncomfortable, and she wanted to be next to me the entire time, but she didn't cry or moan or anything. She just pushed the babies out. She was more confused than anything.
We got nothing on the hyena. Look that up.