[AdrianB1]

> They also need to understand the effects that having a child has on a woman's body.

I thought they were built for that. For tens of thousands of years women had on average 7 children or more, it looks like the process is very reliable. These days birth-giving mortality is very close to zero, also post-birth care is quite good, so we are in a better place than ever and still concerned?

[lotsofpulp]

Read this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/1t6akt4/id...

Just because women used to birth 7 kids with high morbidity and mortality rates does not mean they wanted to.

[habinero]

We are not "built for it" lol. Humans evolved to have huge brains for thinking and a narrow pelvis for running, and those two things historically kill a reasonable fraction of women. Not so much that the population can't grow, but something like a 1%/birth rate. Roll that dice 20-30 times and you get a lot of dead people.

Mortality aside, pregnancy is incredibly hard on the human body. Demineralized bones, anemia, vaginal scarring and fistulas, etc etc. Whole lot of stuff can wreck your body without killing you.

[y-curious]

Well, again you are proving the point that education (knowledge of how pregnancy and delivery are actually traumatic) is discouraging reproduction. Many women won’t do this because they’re educated to the detriment of society, and it sucks because women deserve to be educated.

[habinero]

My dude, do you really think people didn't know about this in the past? I assure you they did lol.

[y-curious]

I think they knew it sucked, but I don't think they had statistics on, say, maternal mortality. Also, they didn't really have a choice, but that's besides the point. The more you read, the less you want to have kids.

[Qem]

> These days birth-giving mortality is very close to zero, also post-birth care is quite good

Also reliable and affordable DNA testing makes much easier collecting pensions from fathers that before would just vanish, or outright deny paternity. An underrated breakthrough in women and children rights enforcement.

[stackskipton]

Historically, women started having children around 16-18 years old so that 7 was much easier.

Societally, almost everyone would argue we shouldn't encourage women to have kids that young.

[habinero]

That doesn't seem to be broadly true.

For example, in Tudor England, women generally got married in their early 20s and men on their late 20s. People absolutely knew pregnancy was dangerous for girls who weren't full grown.

[stackskipton]

It's varied throughout history obviously but if you look at average marriage age now, it's still in low 20s in many places.

[Take8435]

I'm not talking about mortality. You injected that and glossed over what I said.