Is Giving Birth Easier for Other Animals? Slate's Explainer asks...

[Emaye]

I found this little article in Slate very interesting and relevant to the birth and beyond board.  

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2012/09/animals_giving_birth_dolphins_bear_newborns_easily_but_hyenas_risk_death_.html

Enjoy.

[tiacait]

wow! Interesting about the hyena.
 

[tropicana]

animals have the advantage of not thinking about it before they undergo it. as modern women, we know so much about relative risks, details of what can happen, etc. ... and we psych ourselves out. and the modern medical establishment makes it much worse. 

[kythe]

Thanks for the article.  It is a very interesting perspective...  We really don't have it bad after all compared to the hyenas.

[spughy]

One thing the article didn't mention is that those animals all live in the environments for which they evolved.  Humans... not so much.  Evolution hasn't caught up to our chair-using, non-squatting, sedentary, shoe-wearing current environment.  And it's not going to, thanks to obstetrical medicine.  All these things, plus a diet that's diverged considerably from what our bodies have evolved to deal with, plus artificial light and disrupted social structures, play havoc with body alignment, strength, hormonal response and stress response. 

When you think about it, it's remarkable so many women do manage to give birth with minimal complications.

And yeah, it'd thoroughly suck to be a hyena giving birth - but the chompy teeth and excess testosterone must be fun.