BBC Focus Magazine

[Colm]

Just saw this question on the Q&A section.

I suppose the other point is, why would it bother? After all, once the baby is coming, it's coming, there's no stopping it - so it's not like you would be more likely to have a baby if it was more pleasant, so there'd be no evolutionary advantage in it.

Remember the "choice" part of having a baby is in the having sex, and that *is* pleasant.

[Doonhamer]

I think the fact that childbirth is difficult in humans shows how the evolutionary advantage gained by walking upright outweighed any disadvantages.

[Shadowwolf]

All it needs is to be is non-debilitating to the continued existence of the animal in question, once successful enough to ensure the continuity of the species there is then much less selective pressure that would drive a less painful birth.

That might sound right, not sure.

[The Beige Avenger]

Big head meets small vagina...

Religious types would tell you it's from eating the forbidden fruit and it (the pain) is Eve's punishment for leading Adam astray.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Big head meets small vagina...

.

Or, more exactly, big head meets small pelvic birth canal.

[The Beige Avenger]

...that's the one

[M Paul Lloyd]

You were close, but no cigar I'm afraid.

[The Beige Avenger]

You were close, but no cigar I'm afraid.

Not a Clinton - Lewinsky joke I hope....

[M Paul Lloyd]

[Healerman]

To be exact, in evolutionary terms, enlarging head meets limit of human birth canal. The reason why childbirth is so painful and why human babies are so "underdeveloped" compared with their simian cousins.

[Liam Sheppard]

the benefits of bipedAL UPRIGHTEDNESS obviously outweighed (evolutionarily) the pain of childbirth and relative helplessness of offspring. Whom have to be born helpless as their heads would get bigger the more developed they were

[Gabriel]

Labor is a very painful experience at least for the mother, and all of us can know this, if we aren´t mothers, by empathy (Varela, 2001). But, not just for the mother, Ferenczi (1983) talks about the birth`s trauma, previously described by Freud. He explained that because the baby lived in an very comfortable, secure, silent, warm and dark environment, the birth is an unpleasant experience for the first encounter with light and noise, a trauma that accompany us for the rest of our lives (Ferenczi, 1983). That can explain the baby`s pain and the mother`s pain, I`m inclined to say that is, as you said, for the size of head and vagina. So, if that´s the problem, an "adaptative" solution (in terms of darwinian hypothesis), would be bigger vaginas (¡). Can you imagine it?¡. Let`s remember that evolution doesn`t have a teleology, an aim (1), as our culture be prone to, I think that evolution is an spontaneous process (Maturana & Varela, 1990).

(1)As an example for the evolution as an historic phenomena with an aim, I`m thinking in Huxley in his "Evolution, the modern synthesis" (correct me if I`m wrong) with his evolutive progress in the continuous increase living being`s independence from the medium, with the human being crowning the process (Maturana & Varela, 1990).
Literature cited
Ferenczi,S.(1983) Thálassa, una teoría de la genitalidad, 4th Ed. (A. Mariam, Trad.): Letra Viva.
Maturana,H.,Varela,F.(1990) De Máquinas y Seres Vivos, auopoiesis de la organización de lo vivo, 2nd Ed.: Universitaria.
Varela,F.(2001) Interview in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-VydyPdhhg, recovered on June 1st, 2012.

[Shadowwolf]

I may be in error but has not much of Freud been consigned to the bin?

I reckons that the reasons for a lack of change has been the lack of any selective pressure to drive any change or make any such mutation more advantageous in the long run. Given the removal of the pain from the act that will eventually lead to a birth the pain would seem to not be a salient factor in reproduction, at the birth point it's inevitable and out of anyones hands. Now were the pain present during sex it would have a much greater bearing on things, probably rather deleterious to the continuation of the species and hence one reason why it's not painful.

As said prior, evolution is not teleological a species just needs to attain a reasonably stable configuration that is successful in continuing so that it will continue to exist; even that itself is still not really an aim but more a happy coincidence. As there is no salient selective pressure to favour less painful birth over what we've got then barring our modern interventions there is no drive to prompt change.

That said, any change would occur over pretty long periods and may not be noticeable in the here and now.

[KingPhillip]

Sorry! Couldn't resist.

"Now were the pain present during sex it would have a much greater bearing on things, probably rather deleterious to the continuation of the species and hence one reason why it's not painful."

An Alpha-male perspective, perhaps?

[Shadowwolf]

Somewhat forgetful of me I see

That said it's not supposed to be intrinsically painful and what pain there may be is nothing akin to birth pain.

[Gabriel]

Neither Freud nor Ferenczi are biologist, they were two prominent psychoanalyst. I've just quoted Ferenczi's book "Thalassa" in order to explain the big trauma that represents the passing of a calm, warm, liquid and dark state in uterus to the lightning, noising and unpleasent new world. When I said that this trauma remains for the rest of the life, I mean that the birth's painful experience reupdates in coitus by means of an amphimixis in case of man (Ferenczi, 1983).

Now were the pain present during sex it would have a much greater bearing on things, probably rather deleterious to the continuation of the species and hence one reason why it's not painful

Ferenczi's hypothesis of why is not painful, is that, once in coitus, man identifies his ego with his penis and semen, reupdating the birth's trauma (and that's the painful part), but the hope of an real and symbolic return to previous state of maternal uterus is greater and make sex pleasent. In case of woman, she identifies herself with man's penis, semen and future baby, thinking in her vagina as a hollow penis, moving his uretral eroticism in clitoris (women's penis) to vagina with an anal eroticism that keeps the retention of semen and future baby (as the anal hez retention) in form of magical hallucinatory omnipotence, with an present sadomasochism (at the moment of deny the penetration's violence with fantasy).
That's the summary I can offer and I know that this are just psychoanalystic terms, but I invite you to check out the book that I mentioned. It's a very seductive theory of genital with the freudian sexual development of personality stablishing a phylogenetic parallel (yes, using Darwin).
Literature cited
Ferenczi, S.(1983) Thalassa, una teoría de la genitalidad, 4th Ed. (A. Mariam, Trad.).: Letra Viva.

[Shadowwolf]

I think I'll pass because it honestly looks like pure fiction in my opinion and I don't care much for these imaginings, think biology does a better job of explaining.

Besides, unless it had an English translation I'd not be able to read it anyway.

[Gabriel]

Of course biology has a great explicative power. But what this phenomenon may simbolize for human psyche has been one of the explicative attempt for psychoanalysis. Freud and Ferenczi tried with his remarkable theories, they may be wrong, and I know that they sounds a little odd if you haven't been well versed in psychoanalysis, but they had a positive impact in psychology, medicine and clinical practice as experience demonstrate us (Badaracco, 2005). So, I don't think is just fiction, I though that his ideas on birth's phenomenon may be interesting for add to the discussion, not as a explanation of phenomenon per se, but as panoramic of its repercution on human simbolism and clinic psychology. I'm so sorry if this may caused some confusion, just want to make more rich the discussion adding a new element.
Literature cited
Badaracco,J.G.(2005) Demonios de la mente: Biografía de una esquizofrenia, 2nd Ed.: Eudeba.

[Shadowwolf]

I'm so sorry if this may caused some confusion,

No need for any apology I think I understood it fine and feel free to add whatever you think would be of interest, but on Ferenczi I reckon we're coming at it from completely differing points of view. To me - btw I'm not versed in psychoanalysis and simply don't have the time to be so - it all sounds very complex but is no more substantial than air, a series of assertions over-layed onto very real biological phenomena like pain and pleasure. A case of reading far more into it than is there and what they imagined or wished to be there. So to me it just reads like fiction, sorry.