Why is giving birth considered a miracle?

:shrug:

:wtf:

but your best friend EVER the nurse has to go to the room next door and do yet another miracle"

I was tired too but I kept it real.

btw- the nurse never comes back. She has miracles to attend to for crying out loud

But mammalian reproduction is quite complex. Producing a viable offspring requires many many chemical and other steps to accomplish.

That said, from the perspective of a grown female, pregnancy and giving birth is damned painful, damned hard work and dangerous. Having a child is an exhilarating, humbling, and amazing experience. My parents congratulated me for getting through delivery successfully and I thanked the doctor for saving both me and the child. My hubby didn't give a damn. he thought I was lazy because i didn't get out of bed for three days after major abdominal surgery!! :banghead: :grr: He doesn't know shit about females.

I had a mandatory c-section (I'm a small person).

I still look at my grown daughter and think, "Wow, I created you! My body made you! And you look like me".

I don't mean that in the form of an ego trip, either, like my conscious mind had anything to do with it. I mean it as "Wow, my body did this amazing thing!".

I think that every time I look at my kids (both young adults now).

Any questions?

...out of a hole the size of a lemon. She calls it a miracle. I'm not inclinced to argue...

:-)

Seriously. They don't have eyes, ears, or really other any sense other than the ability to chemically sniff their immediate neighbors. So how they frak do they co-ordinate, and make everything go where it should be? Hell, even those 10 A&P credits I took in college left me dubious that I had really been properly taught what the hell was going on.

Freaky damned stem cells.

FREAKY!

being used in hip and knee surgery. They are being used - experimentally, right now - in surgeries where a knee replacement would otherwise be mandatory. The stem cells know where to go and they go there and create new bone.

Same with hips.

This reminds me of when our son, around the age of eleven, asked his father - thank god! - where babies came from. So, his father, a Ph.D., an educated man who truly understood the miracle of reproduction, sat down with him and explained it all in terms our boy would understand.

He listened, and nodded, and his father was silently congratulating himself for not sweating too much, thinking he had done a good job and it was over, when our son said, "So let me get this straight - sometimes semen comes out of the penis and sometimes it's pee?"

"That's right," his father said.

"Well," our boy asked, quite reasonably, "how does it know which one to let out?"

And, with that, his father lost it, and chirped, beaten, "It knows. It knows. Do you want pizza?"

My daughter popped out. I was the first human to touch her.

Yes, a miracle.

:hi:

PS: I hope daughter never reads DU. I've always tried to be inflammatory. Felt good as hell though. :D

:hi:

;)

Hi you!

:*

Or are we just seeing the aftermath of a very bad divorce?

And, uh, I think you might have committed a HUGH Freudian slip there, buddy: "I've always tried to be inflammatory."

and :rofl:

I wanted non-flamitory.. but.. it looked funny.. :rofl:

:hi:

. . . or a woman who's never given birth . . . ?

As Joan Rivers says, "It's like trying to push a piano through a keyhole."

That's right. A miracle.

After that, they're miracles.

I mean, if you knew then, what you know now, would you do it again? :shrug:

It's a miracle that any of us have siblings.

we can remember that we were in pain, but we cannot recreate the pain.

Hence, we do it again...................

"You bastard--YOU did this to me. You'll never get near me again!"

Childbirth used to kill lots and lots of women.

For C sections,and using sterile technique.

It is an every day occurrence. But it is mind blowing to me. I felt like it was miraculous. Really I did. That little bean that I saw at 8 weeks gestation now giggles her little butt off. To watch her grow from nothing and to see where she is now, and where she will be next month, that is miraculous. All births (animals, etc.) are. But I believe in miracles.

they grow up too quickly!

But it's pretty damn amazing.

Sure, every animal species does it...but we understand it on a level other species don't, and assign it meaning like no other critters.

AND I STILL DID IT WITH NO FUCKING DRUGS.

I figure I should be, at the very least, the center of a major religion for that one.

I cannot, however, claim to have done it without drugs.

I wanted to.

At once point I asked about it, but the anesthesiologist was tied up in some kind of emergency, and by the time he was free I was ready to push anyhow. If he'd been available I might have given that a shot.

Hey, as long as they come out, whatever works.

but I was pretty well knocked over with the ctx by the time we got to the hospital. I even had a Jacuzzi and a birthing ball in my room, but was never able to use them.

He was the only one of my children with whom I had an epidural, and he was the biggest of my gigantor children, but he was also the easiest to push. Go figure.

I did it drug free too, but my spawn was only 8lbs 14oz. How long was your labor?

The doctor kept wanting to "augment" my labor to "speed things up" but I'm smart enough to know that's a fast way to wind up with an epidural and then a section, so I declined. She was pissy about it but last I checked it's my freakin' uterus so I'm in charge.

My son was also 24"(!!!) inches long, so he was just huge all over. 35 lbs at his first birthday. And I'd kind of expected any kid of mine to be on the small side, since I'm tiny. Silly me. :eyes:

My mom had been in a car accident while she was pregnant with me. Broke her hip. Laid up six weeks in the hospital on her back, and then proceeded to push me out. A 9lb, 21", breeched baby. Both arms wrapped up behind my back, and not breathing. No Drugs. She was then told my arms were damaged from the position I had been in and that I might get the use of my right arm, but never my left. Of course the docs were wrong.

Now, my daughter's birth...not nearly as impressive, but I'm very small 4'11". She was almost 9lbs. 24 hours of labor, all back. 11 hours before I would accept any drugs. 2 rounds of pitosin and I never dilated past 5 cm. Emergency c-section.

I felt very guilty for not being able to have her naturally. I don't any more though. If I hadn't had that c-section, one of us wouldn't be here right now.

If you've witnessed pregnancy and birth first hand, than yeah, you know it's pretty miraculous. Even if it's occurred about 9 billion times before.

(Despite the wars, invasions, slaughters, sacrifices, et cetera... nobody's perfect...)

Particularly for those of us who have chosen to be childless, or have experienced miscarriages and sterility. My SO and I agreed early on that we didn't want children. however, ooops, we found ourselves (myself) pregnant, birth control at the time was the Sponge. We decided to go with the flow and accept a child into our relationship. As it turned out, I miscarried because of fibroids. After 3 years of treatment and a hysterectomy, it turned up I didn't have 1 or 2 large fibroids, but my uterus was covered with dozens of tiny fibroid tumors.

We've never looked back at the fact we can't have kids the good old fashioned way, and we haven't sought out non-conventional ways. We have accepted and adapted to the facts of our being who we are, as we had already agreed we were complete without children.

Birth IS a miracle for those who want it, especially when you think about all the things that can go wrong.

edited for spelling and clarification.

Why not when it's a cow giving birth to a calf?

something to be treasured and amazed at.

:yoiks:

Humans have a harder time giving birth than most other mammals (the only one I can think of that does worse is English Bulldogs, and stupid breeding did to them the same thing evolution did to humans- babies that are bigger than the mother's pelvic outlet) because orienting the pelvis for upright walking made it very difficult to get one of those comparatively massive human brains out.

At least that's what I thought.

places I was barely aware existed, and generally just kind of disgusting all around. For ten months. Not nine, ten.

My kid owes me SO MUCH. I'm going to forward him that thread about buying Mom flowers and/or an imported luxury vehicle.

Mine was 44 weeks at birth. Stubborn little asshole (I love him dearly, but he is) didn't want to come out. I should have told him there are video games out here, that would have coaxed him out. ;)

those 4 extra weeks. That was a miserable time!

and I've had more difficult bowel movements.

H. Sapiens is right on the ragged edge when it comes to childbirth. A combination of bipedalism (narrowing the pelvic opening) and our big brains.

I must have foolishly thought that the "miracle of birth" was more than just the birthing experience, meaning the labor and delivery. I thought it was the whole conception through delivery thing.

I think life in general is awe-inspiring. The machinery at the cellular level, reproduction, the mind, etc. I just don't find it any of "miraculous." Just beautiful and awesome on its own without ascribing supernaturalism.

C-sections and surgeons are a wonderful thing when they let you live to raise your child.

For that matter, the growth of a giant Redwood or a field full of edible vegetables is pretty miraculous too. Nature's ways of reproducing are amazingly complex and effective. I never get tired of seeing it.

I was pissed they brought the pregnant cow to the fair, the poor animal was obviously distressed with having so many people watching her. When I saw what was going on, I left the area and came back later to see the little calf. Just as much of a miracle if not more so for having 60 people watch you give birth.

that any woman goes through it more than once.

It is rather incredible watching the progress as the baby grows inside until the birth. Hearing the heartbeat, watching the limbs grow, seeing the features develop. It's really cool.

What with the proof of 6.7 billion "miracles" currently living on this God-forsaken ball of dirt, I can only assume that "miracle" is defined as "something that commonly happens, like, all the effing time."

Stupidity.

It's like they despise the very idea that someone might be awestruck and profoundly moved by the idea of creating a new life. Thank God not everyone is as spiteful, bitter, and misanthropic as they are. God damn.

In case it's relevant, I have no children. I just really fucking can't stand the hipster faux-intellectual cynic contingent.

There are those "cynics" you speak of, but there are also those essentially huffing, "How DARE you not consider it a miracle!" All I'm saying is that self-righteousness is a two-way street... :shrug:

The "how DARE you" responses?

Just curious.

Like people getting overly defensive at the suggestion that perhaps reproduction isn't miraculous. But maybe that's just my interpretation...

no interpretation required.

But I think that's partly because childless people in this society feel looked down upon to a certain extent. Which doesn't make it right for them to take out their frustrations on those who *have* given birth, but I think that may well be one reason for the overload of snark.

sure as shit ain't the case in the Lounge.

:)

However, you're not likely to see many of the "how DARE you not think childbirth is the pinnacle of human experience" people on DU, and in this thread in particular, all of the obnoxiousness is coming from the other quarter, so they're the ones who are currently pissing me off.

Self-righteous superiority is odious from any angle, agreed.

We don't see much of one kind around here... way too much of the other (IMO).

But yeah... it's all shit.

What do you consider a miracle?

It goes way beyond a mere chemical reaction - seriously, it's like turning lead into gold or something.

But as for why people make such a big deal over it, I have to chalk that up partly to narcissism. :P

the rest of us as some kind of bullshit "accomplishment."

It's hard fucking work, and anybody who manages it should be proud of themselves. Deal.

Bella was my fifth pregnancy and she is my only child. I thought I wouldn't be able to have kids. I still thought that child birth was a miracle whether or not it would happen for me. I am thankful she is here and I feel like she is my miracle baby.

That sounds a little over-sensitive. Fact is it is a pretty major deal so one tends to be impressed with it. Sorry if you wanted and couldn't but it isn't anything personal against you if I (and most others, I expect) talk about it, hope you can understand that. Certainly not meant to belittle those that haven't or can't.

Man, there are some huge chips teetering on shoulders in this thread. Yeah, I have kids. Yeah, I think the process of procreation and childbirth is pretty damn amazing. No, I don't "lord it over" anyone because I've experienced it. I go on the assumption that other people have their own accomplishments they feel wonder and pride in. Apparently, however, I'm supposed to feel either ashamed or simply shrug off the birth of my kids as no big deal.

Maybe if those of you who feel offended by those of us who choose to be happy we are parents would stop looking so hard for something to be bitter about, you'd be less bitter.

"There is no such thing as a 'miracle'. There is no such thing as a 'miracle'. There is no such thing as a 'miracle'."



(He's speaking to the use of "miracle" by the news media, and he's correct. I think it's also correct in every other sense.)

or nothing is...

or taken the time to consider what the process is all about. Creating life. Nothing more miraculous than that.

Or maybe you are just hung up on the word "miracle".

giving birth was the most dangerous trip any of us ever took.

So much can go wrong, that delivering a baby alive is truly quite a miracle.

In the past the second part was all too common.

He realizes that the mother and child must be safely delivered in childbirth, and that is the foundation for healthy families. Half a million women a year around the world die from mostly preventable childbirth and childbed fever (uterine infection from lack of a sterile operating theater).

It's about goddamn time somebody realized that you don't withhold health care from women and children if you want healthy families.

:thumbsup:

refreshing, isn't it?

When a lot can go wrong, people are included to credit divine intervention when it does not. On the other hand, they are not likely to blame god if something goes wrong but chalk it up to not being "meant" to be.

When people don't understand how something wondrous works, they are also likely to credit divine intervention.

Of course a mother, going through the process of childbirth, is going to see it as a miracle. Reasonably, it is not. Miracles are things that not only don't happen that often, but DEFY REASONABLE EXPLANATION. But what can't be explained about childbirth? Moreover, the ability to reproduce is the RULE here on planet Earth, not the exception. But a mother doesn't want to hear that. There is a significant emotional bonding that occurs which causes the desire to care for the newborn. This response is so strong from an evolutionary standpoint that people close to, but not involved with the birth (family, friends) will have sympathetic attenuated responses that are similar (it takes a village to raise a child).

In other words... we are evolutionarily programmed to experience this unconditional bonding in reproduction because a child's survival depends on it.

But it ain't no miracle.

It's also something that inspires awe.

It seems some people are getting hung up on one definition of the word.

How else would they get in their daily scoffing at "supernaturalism" and the dumb plebes who allow themselves to experience wonder and - gasp, yes - strong emotion?

The Spock wannabes are just too much sometimes.

Here I am trying to express a point, and you think "the man," or I guess in this case "the Vulcan," is shitting in your cornflakes.

I called NO ONE a dumb plebe. Nor did I intimate that people who feel childbirth is miraculous are cracked supernaturalists. Unless you imagined I did, in which case, it really doesn't matter if I did or didn't, because you're going to believe what you want to believe, so I'm not even going to attempt to dissuade you from whatever you may think I intimated.

In fact, I believe that I made a statement that, evolutionarily speaking, this sense of "miracle" is an evolved response. In other words, QUITE NORMAL. You'd be OUT OF THE ORDINARY if you gave birth and DID NOT FEEL THIS WAY.

But by any reasonable definition, the "truthiness" involved in what you perceive to be a miracle is not the truth. By any reasonable definition, it is NOT a miracle. That was the point I was trying to make.

But if sneering snark coupled with a complete lack of reading comprehension helps you feel like you served up your well-deserved smackdown for the day, who am I to stand in your way?

Main Entry: mir·a·cle
Pronunciation: \ˈmir-i-kəl\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin miraculum, from Latin, a wonder, marvel, from mirari to wonder at
Date: 12th century
1: an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs
2: an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment
3: Christian Science : a divinely natural phenomenon experienced humanly as the fulfillment of spiritual law

Throwing out #3 as not particularly applicable to the situation at hand, we are left with the first two.

The first definition is right out because birth could hardly be described as an extraordinary event that manifests divine intervention. It's a normal function of life to reproduce, without it, it's not life.

The only definition which would support the claim that it's also something that inspires awe is the second, and it does so weakly. The unusual co-requirement does not qualify, because this can be quantified, and birth happens often. So we further strip the definition down to:

'an extremely outstanding event, thing, or accomplishment.'

Now calling it outstanding makes it subjective, because this is largely a matter of opinion, and thus it might be satisfied by this according to your particular point of view. However, the critical nuance here is the fact that divine intervention takes first billing in this definition, and the second still makes mention of the unusual. So it seems that there is a need for something more than "hey, I think this is great" to qualify it as a miracle.

Why your statement that "It's also something that inspires awe" is incorrect is because it is way too broad. Many things inspire awe but they are not considered miracles. A tornado ripping a part of town inspires awe if you see it firsthand, but is it a miracle? A volcano in the process of eruption is rather awe-inspiring, but is it a miracle? A golfer hits "a miraculous shot" in the words of an announcer, but seriously, isn't that just a bit much considering its a golf shot?

Miracle implies something extremely rare, special, and in some cases brought about by divine force, even if you apply the second definition, and it does not imply something personally negative even if the spectacle inspires awe.

It's not a hangup. Calling childbirth a "miracle" devalues the word by applying a superlative to something that simply isn't, but that's not really the point. The point is that this experiential bias seems to be rather normal. What's most interesting to me is that childbirth almost always inspires this experiential bias, leading some to believe that it evolved to greater guarantee the survival of the child.

People assume it does and assume I am minimizing great things or events by denying they are miracles.

"Miracle" does not have to mean "from God".

Still, implicitly, miracle does imply divinity even if it is an unexpressed assumption.

I can use the word "supernatural" to describe something completely natural simply because it's the most astounding thing I've ever seen, but it doesn't lend any more gravitas to the statement I make. It just makes my statement incorrect.

Similarly, I can use the word "orange" to describe something blue, in other words, I too can be as inaccurate and silly in my speech and writing as I choose, but let's face facts, words mean what they mean. Whether or not we choose to corrupt them with our own biases, or use them inappropriately or with impunity does no service to communicating our meaning. While I don't believe the point of the OP was to engage in a semantic argument specifically, the definition of miracle seems to imply, even in its most secular meaning, that a defiance of a probable outcome must be a qualifying factor.

To use the word miracle with regards to childbirth, in which a successful outcome probable on the whole, seems to be a useful narcissism as I've stated often enough in this thread.

If we're talking about all pregnancies.

I have been pregnant seven times, but I only have three children. That means I've had more pregnancies fail than be successful. I don't think that's too uncommon.

I just don't understand what's wrong with using the word "miracle" in this context - not, perhaps, each individual pregnancy resulting in a live birth, but that the entire process became possible in the first place. We are complex beings, and the reproduction process itself is complex and fascinating. With so much that could go wrong every step of the way, it does seem a wonder that everything goes right so often.

And for me, that's got nothing to with any god or gods.

is my miracle. I don't care what anyone else says.

You are projecting your case as some indicator of the whole. If you look at the by and large, your difficulty may very well be the statistical outlier.

What's wrong with using the word miracle is that it ISN'T a miracle. Just because complex processes evolved do not make them miracles. Just because something is fascinating does not make it a miracle. And just because WE have an experiential bias of what might go wrong and that it often doesn't, is indicative of the fact that it is normal that it doesn't, hence, not a miracle.

As far as whether you do or don't use "miracle" in this manner is obviously up to you, I personally don't care and it wouldn't matter if I did. The point of the OP as I see it was to somehow tease out why the word "miracle" is so devalued in this case where what is more common than not takes on an air of the intervention of a divine hand, kismet, fortune, or luck. I simply offer up my opinion on it.

I don't see "miracle" in this context as being devalued.

6.7 billion miracles living on planet Earth...

Devalued. Agree to disagree.

Seriously, who else but an upright mammal has to feel pain in childbirth????

When people are amazed by something, they call it miraculous. So one definition of miracle is something amazing, awe-inspiring, moving... Birth fits that.

I probably would have died if I'd had that same situation decades ago.

I mean, I guess :shrug: breeding is the primary function of all animals, so I guess we're wired to think it's our pinnacle achievement.

Also a good bullshit line to feed to people when you (the government, say, or the king or the emperor or the Pope) need more canon fodder to go take land you want.

Also, for most people, it's the closest they'll ever come to a creative, generative act that has any impact whatsoever on the world.

However your response makes me feel like I should have some made. This might just get interesting.

:popcorn:

I imagine many miracles are not writ large, but are rather small, private wonders which are part and parcel of our lives. I would imagine that on the level of no more than a new mother and a new father, the continuity of life is indeed a miracle-- a wondrous thing surpassing in quality those other aspects of our lives.

I would hazard that a miracle which has happened twenty billion times over the course of humanity becomes even more of a miracle-- regardless of whether we become communally jaded to it.

but it happens waaaaaaaaaaaaay too often to be a miracle.

i named him Chauncey

birthweight.

"But I'll tell you this. Where's this idea that childbirth is a miracle came from. Ha, I missed that fucking meeting, okay? "It's a miracle, childbirth is a miracle." No it's not. No more than a miracle than eating food and a turd coming out of your ass. It's a chemical reaction, that's all it fucking is. If, you wanna know what a miracle is: raisin' a kid that doesn't talk in a movie theatre. Okay, there, there, there is a goddam miracle. It's not a miracle if every nine months any yin yang in the world can drop a litter of these mewling cabbages on our planet. And just in case you haven't seen the single mom statistics lately, the miracle is spreading like wild-fire. "Hallelujah!" Trailer parks and council flats all over the world just filling up with little miracles. Thunk, thunk, thunk, like frogs laying eggs. "Thunk, look at all my little miracles, thunk, filling up my trailer like a sardine can. Thunk. You know what would be a real miracle, if I could remember your daddy's name, aargh, thunk. I guess I'll have to call you Lorry Driver Junior. Thunk. That's all I remember about your daddy was his fuzzy little pot-belly riding on top of me shooting his caffeine ridden semen into my belly to produce my little water-headed miracle baby, urgh. There's your brother, Pizza Delivery Boy Junior."

-Bill Hicks
"Revelations"

I love that one.

Maybe you'll have better luck.

Apparently none of his devoted fans feels like putting that one up there for all to see.

That will have to suffice I guess.

Lovely little misogynist he was.

It ends with "... Will Work For Food Junior." :rofl:

and not want to kill what caused all that pain. I guess. :shrug: Oh, they want to kill it, but usually when it hits the teen years. :P

of millions of domesticated offspring (animal, I should have clarified), as well, from well-meaning but moronic parents who wish their children to see the family dog or cat give birth, so they can witness the "miracle of birth" then give away the litter to people who later give them back to the animal shelter or worse.

..."miracle" already HAS a definition.

birth to be a miracle, then one would need to know which definition the person was using.

instead of defining the other person's terms for them, and telling them how mistaken you think they are... you ask if what you understand them to be saying is what they are trying to say.

Sorry, it just doesn't work like that.

The context is highlighted below


http://www.answers.com/miracle

1. An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God: “Miracles are spontaneous, they cannot be summoned, but come of themselves” (Katherine Anne Porter).
2. One that excites admiring awe. See synonyms at wonder.
3. A miracle play.

(Middle English, from Old French, from Latin mīrāculum, from mīrārī, to wonder at, from mīrus, wonderful.)



Also, please note the origin of the word. Not biblical.

But if answers.com is now the de facto source for the definitions of words, I stand corrected.

My bad.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=miracle&searchmode=none

Etymology. It's sort of the final answer, no matter where it comes from.

It may be considered a joyous occasion when one gives birth, but beyond that...what would YOU consider to be a miracle?

My miracle would be I find a better paying job and someone who truly cares about me would pay off my $7000.00 credit card debt so I can start to live a normal life again...

I would consider THAT a miracle....

By then, I would have left town and changed my name.

It's one of those words that's always figurative and rarely to be taken literally.

Kind of like "literally."

Especially *here* of all places.

I don't have to do it.

mark