this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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I get the feeling that pregnancy and reproduction are one clear area in which evolution is incomplete or has reached a compromised dead end in the case of human females.
It’s uncomfortable and disturbingly profound to talk about, and so a bit taboo, women are in all likelihood simply being fucked by biology and they’ll probably one of the first to benefit from the emergence of trans-human technological enhancement.
I mean, there isn't much that can be done for it even with medical advancements. The hormone needed for loosening up the hips and abdomen can't be concentrated there so it gets everything (back ligaments or whatever are the main one affected as well and is why their backs hurt relatively early in pregnancy, the ligaments are loose so they move more and need more effort to keep in place). Trouble breathing (swollen sinuses) and swollen arms/legs/hands/feet/etc is because the body needs a lot more blood, both for the baby and to prepare for some blood loss and recovery during birth. Nausea from some other fun hormones plus pressure on the stomach. Uncomfortable positioning is just an unfortunate side effect of having a large living being growing very quickly in the middle of the body without much place to put the other organs because of pesky bones.
Basically everything that happens in a pregnant woman's body has a useful purpose in some way or area, there's just no way to contain that effect to the places they need to be. Even weird things that seem like a bad evolutionary trait can be useful, like how newborn necks are super wiggly and fragile, and their heads being squishy. Both are needed so they can fit bend a bit and make it through the pelvis, not really a better way around that since there's only so far the mothers body can do and still be functional
I’m not quite sure what the point is here.
My term was “compromised dead end” and I feel like your post basically goes through the details of this compromise, which is great, I’m just not clear on whether you have a broader point. And to be clear, I didn’t mean to suggest that there is no purpose to the difficulties of pregnancy. Just that a certain evolutionary path has been pursued that has arrived at a compromised state for the welfare of women.
As to whether it’s a “dead end”, as I speculated, is harder to address.
One could compare with the reproductive physiology of other animals. From what I’ve gathered, which could be incorrect, the menstrual cycle is odd and problematic in the case of humans compared to other mammals. I’d be interested in how true/false that is. Generally the menstrual cycle and its effects can be easily forgotten in conversations on this.
As for all of the details of pregnancy, human bipedalism seems to necessitate at least some of these compromises, which suggests that the female reproductive experience is essentially human. Still it’d be interesting to imagine whether other forms of anatomy are possible that both free up our hands for craft and technology without constraining the hips, however unfavourable it would have been for our evolution it may have been.