are humans the only mammals who tear during brith? - Page 2

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by laoxinat

Human bred animals aren't an appropriate comparison to animals in the wild. I highly doubt that geneticall pure wolves ever have tears when whelping puppies that are also genetically pure. KWIM?

Giraffes are human bred?

[beesister]

Originally Posted by swissmiss2584

I was thinking one day after my friend's dog had puppies, are humans the only mammals who can tear during birth?

Also, do other mammals experience birth pains? I don't think I've ever heard a dog or cat cry out while in labor.

In response to the birth pain question I once heard a plausible theory, that I think can be useful to know for laboring women. A lot of human pain can be from anticipation. Dogs and cats (etc) are just in the moment. They aren't scared about pain that is coming next, they are coping with what is present. The fear of "...and it's just going to keep going, or getting worse" can be a big factor in how humans feel pain.

Hope that wasn't to convoluted.

[JesseMomme]

Originally Posted by Liquesce

The logic I find questionable isn't that human breeding can be the cause of problems for the bred animals, but that it is doubtful that "genetically pure" wild animals ever tear while giving birth. I'm not clear on why this would be deemed unlikely without observation of such, unless we're operating on an assumption that nature as it stands apart from human intervention is perfect to a degree that very often does not prove true.

Ahhh, I got you

[Greenmama2AJ]

Animals most definetely tear in the wild. They also have still births, malpresentations, severe blood loss leading to death etc.

I think the idea that "natural" births result in "perfect" births - no pain, no injury, no deaths is completely untrue. And there is heaps of evidence of this in nature. Geez, I've witnessed heaps of examples first hand and I'm not even a breeder or biologist. This is the same line of thinking that says only humans "orgasm". What nonsense.

And on the same note - I believe nature isn't "perfect" because it isn't meant to be - but that doesn't make it any less beautiful nor any less amazing. Perhaps we should strive for a natural birth because it is divine and miraculous by nature, and not because it is clean and easy.

Just my (perhaps a little blunt) opinion.

[kriket]

I've seen and helped a LOT of animals into the world. I do believe that the "natural" birth can sometimes by some people be put on too high of a pedestal. I've seen the same horse give birth to about the same size foals and 3 times she tore, once the legs got caught on her pelvis, once she started active labour and I swear was in so much pain she was waking the dead. I really think that animals have the same hard time. Some animals are baby making machines and I've even had cats that just didn't understand what was happening. She walked around the barn meowing her head off (she was a little off) we found that she had delivered her kittens while walking up to the barn. Two were in the driveway, and one was half way out. We tried to save them but she wouldn't nurse and she took them out of her box every chance she got to leave them in the barn floor to die. It was very sad, and there were no other barn cats at the time that could mother them.
so, my point is. Nature is really no help here. As far as I can tell, bad things sometimes happen for no reason. Some kind of intervention is sometimes necessary. If we truly let nature take its course, some people will die. That is nature. I'm not trying to PO people. I really think that as natural as possible is better, but as with all things, some people can go overboard.
much love