From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Tue Oct 07 2003 - 07:23:56 MDT
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sl4@sl4.org [mailto:owner-sl4@sl4.org]On Behalf Of Samantha
Atkins
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 12:58 AM
To: sl4@sl4.org
Subject: Re: Friendliness and blank-slate goal bootstrap
On Monday 06 October 2003 13:13, Mike Williams wrote:
> Just to throw another kink into it:
>
> Since natural childbirth is so painful for both the mother and child,
> and C-section is available to anyone who wants it, why is natural
> childbirth still practiced? (If the mother gains somehow from the
> experience, is it still justified in terms of the pain caused to the
> child?)
As I understand it, recovery time for the mother is quite a bit shorter with
less possible medical complications.
- samantha
*********************
Firstly, C-section without strong anesthesia would be rather painful, and
strong anesthesia is medically fairly risky.
Secondly, natural childbirth is experienced by many women as intensely
rewarding as well as intensely painful. Pain is not the only aspect of
childbirth. My wife chose to have the last two of our three children via
home birth without anesthetics, and enjoyed the experience, not because of
the pain but in spite of it.
As an aside, I also note that the pain is often much less in a home birth
without drugs and typical hospital apparatus, due to the woman's ability to
assume more natural postures during the birth process, and the fact that the
woman's muscles are at full strength without drugs in the body. Birth seems
to be an area where high technology has not proved useful --- it helps
tremendously with the small percentage of medically traumatic births, but
seems to increase the odds of medical trauma because the technologies in
question (fetal monitors that require the mother to lie on her back; drugs
that weaken the mother; etc.). The research my wife and I did showed that
home birth is actually safer at this point, so long as you're in close
distance to a hospital in case of emergency.
OK, this is waaaaay off topic for SL4 I think. So I'll resist the urge to
do any further preaching in this direction, and get back to work ;-)
-- Ben G
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