Have Birth Pangs been getting worse throughout history?

ThomasCovenant

At Genesis 3:16 Jehovah told the woman that he would increase or multiply her pain in childbirth. Does this not indicate that there would have been some pain at childbirth even if the woman had not sinned?-G. V., Belgium.

Genesis 3:16 (NW) reads: "To the woman he said: ‘I shall greatly increase the pain of your pregnancy; in birth pangs you will bring forth children, and your longing will be for your husband, and he will dominate you.'" After she had sinned, Jehovah told the woman she would bring forth children in birth pangs. That meant pain for the sinner mother. So the promised increase of pain would indicate that fallen womanhood would undergo an increase of pain as the centuries passed, due to the accumulating degeneration and weaknesses that would cause increasing pain and ordeal. If this is the case, it would tie the increase of pain in with the sin that brought on degeneration in the first place, appropriately so. The nearer to perfection women were the less difficulty there would be for them in giving birth.

WT 1st July 1954, page 415 QFR

cantleave

Epidural, Gas and Air - ahhh woman have it sooo easy these days !!!

St George of England

Pregnancy and childbirth have been easier and safer during the past 100 years or so than at any time in human history.

Maybe something due to Satan being here now!

George

mummatron

Hi Thomas,

The nearer to perfection women were the less difficulty there would be for them in giving birth.

That statement by the WTBTS is very vague and speculative. To me it implies that perfection would have entailed some very different biological and chemical responses. I mean, come on! How is squeezing something the size of a grapefruit out of something the size of a 10p piece not going to hurt?!

Quoting myself on a recent thread http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/212374/1/Eve-Failing-the-Single-Test-She-Had :

Having just had 2 babies, the physiological and psychological factors of birth are something I've looked at in-depth. It's possible to have a near pain-free (drug-free) experience by adopting a more animalistic approach (look at how dogs, cats and other quadruped mammals birth their young) by keeping mobile, squating on all fours to allow the pelvis to open and for gravity to help. Hypnobirthing is something that is gaining in popularity as a drug-free method of pain-relief. What's interesting about that is that studies such as Dr Grantly Dick-Read's identify the physiological reactions that occur due to what he named the 'fear, tension, pain cycle'. By fearing birth, one increases the pain and duration. Thus telling women that they will experience painful labours as mentioned in Genesis ch3, instills a belief that birth is painful and something to fear which causes pain - thus fulfilling what the Bible writers chronicled!

There has been many medical studies on the effects of fear and pain in labour over the past 20 years. In 2005, Alehagen et al published a medical study in the Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynaecology whereby labouring women had catecholamines and cortisol levels recorded at the same time as giving an answer on their Delivery Fear Scale and a pain intensity scale. One of the main findings of the study is that "Fear and pain correlated, as well as levels of fear in the different phases of labor." There's even a (surprisingly common) phenomenon known as 'orgasmic birth' in which the combination of high levels of oxytocin, uterine contractions and the baby descending down the birth canal can actually be a pleasant sensation.

I could go on and on about this subject all day, LOL.

Mummatron

P.S. I'm located quite near to you.

Snoozy

Back in the 50's I can say there were no "Pleasure " pains associated with my childbirth of 3 children!

You were lucky if you got the wiff of gas before the head came out and ripped you to shreds..then there was the fun of waking up 2 minutes later to being sewed up without any painkiller..made you suck your breath in..Like "OUCH"!!! (Being nice here)

Then if you nursed you had the fun of those contractions all over again..OUCH!!!

Then for the next year you were lucky if you got 6 straight hours of sleep a night..

When I had the 2nd child I begged hubby to keep circleing the hospital cause I knew what I was in for..

Childbirth, ahhhh you gotta love it..I would trade it for adoption anyday!

I do have to say it was easier the next times..not harder.

Snoozy

designs

Describe perfect Hips...

mrsjones5

Mine. With all of my four babies it only took two pushes to get them out (that's including my daughter who was the ten pounder) without drugs or forceps. ;D

watersprout

I suffered during labour with Babysprout... She was face up so I was in slow labour for two and a half weeks.. By the time I went into hospital again (they kept sending me home cause I was a dubbie and they were irritated by me) I was 5cm... It took another 36 hours to get to 10cm then an hour an half of pushing. I was cut... Carrot passed out.... I screamed out for death.... I had no drugs only gas and air while pushing... Babysprout came out and wasn't breathing... Her little skull had been crushed from the slow labour and coming out with her face hitting every bone on the way out... She was black/purple, her skull was dented and her face was swollen.... I had the resuss team in my room trying to save her... It was bloody horrible! I was stitched up by a trainee midwife who took ages and really hurt me...

Wow that brought back nasty memories...

I think labour has always been horrific for some women... Some women suffer, some don't... I think it all depends on the woman... Even now I know of women who had an hours labour a couple of pushes and viola.. Baby.... So that shows birth pangs aren't getting any worse.... I believe tehy have always been this way.

Yes the next woman who tells me that labour is a beautiful experience is gonna get a slap upside her head!

Peace

Have Birth Pangs been getting worse throughout history?

Share this