No human experience is remotely like that of childbirth. It is unique because it is both a universal event in humanity, occurring all the time and everywhere, and the most important reality ever known. Throughout history, it has been: sacred; literally attacked and prevented; the source of intense debate; a process deciding how nations are ruled; the central issue in gender relations and roles; and the primal and sole means by which the human species survives. Beyond any definition, however, childbirth is the experience simultaneously traumatic, life-changing, painful, and rewarding as may be imagined, and ultimately belonging only to women.
Description
In practical terms, childbirth may be described and understood as a biological event which, obviously, culminates pregnancy. When the fetus is fully developed, as occurs by the ninth month of human gestation, it “signals” its readiness to be born. That readiness is, in fact, an imperative or inevitability; the woman has carried the unborn child during the pregnancy and, in plain language, it must be born or both mother and child cannot survive. The mother begins to feel contractions, in which the cervix, the entry point of the uterus, dilates. It opens and closes with increasing frequency, and this marks the beginning of various stages of extreme physical pain in the mother. For some mothers, the pain is minimal, but for most it is intense, and worsening as the labor progresses. Essentially, the fetus is moving into a position preparing for birth; this translates to a baby needing to exit through the otherwise narrow vagina, or birth canal at that time. The cervix quickens dilations to facilitate the expulsion of the baby from the body.
Use your promo and get a custom paper on
"Descriptive Essay Abot Childbirth".
Inevitably, all these processes are subject to variations, even as the outcome remains the same and the woman undergoes an experience no man can appreciate. It sometimes happens that a breech birth is the case, in which the baby must be repositioned because the head is not at the cervix opening. Then, a number of conditions may call for a Caesarian birth, in which the child is removed by an incision to the abdomen. This occurs when the baby cannot be properly positioned for a healthy delivery, when labor goes on too long for safety, and for other medical reasons. The vaginal birth, however, is by far the most common. Usually, a doctor or midwife is on hand to ease the process. The baby is pushed out by the mother, the head emerges first, and a final separation between mother and child is the cutting of the umbilical cord that has nourished the fetus in utero. With extremely rare exceptions, pain is so extreme, most mothers choose to be medicated during delivery, although some decide to endure the pain in “natural” childbirth. Given the size of the average baby and the birth canal narrowness, it is understood that the pain is so excruciating, it defies description. Ironically, modern Western culture promotes the father as present and assisting during childbirth, in order to share in the experience, when the reality is that no one other than the mother can possibly know and feel that experience.
Conclusion
Childbirth has always had a mythic quality attached to it, from pagan ideas of universal life-giving to Christian perspectives still upholding the event as sacred evidence of God. At the same time, humanity has consistently sought to define the experience, no matter the context, as human, rather than as belonging to women. This is understandable, given male and female awe for the reality of producing a new human being. Still, that view ignores a truth as fundamental as the experience itself. Ultimately, and while childbirth is simultaneously traumatic, life-changing, indescribably painful, and rewarding as anyone can imagine, and it is an experience belonging only to women.
