Damien.

Such good advice, Malone. I just think it''s weird that so many things that need to happen for humans hurt. First time sex, growing pains, childbirth - but I suppose the last one's due to the fact that we walk on two legs. Go us!

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WriterDude

Here's a question for you all. Everyone say childbirth is the most painful thing a person can go through, but how would you know? As a guy, there are no way I can know what childbirth or pregnancy feels like. But as women, there are several things you can't know about, like how it feels to get a kick in the nuts. So how can anyone compare those things?

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JosephB

You can't -- and it's useless to try.

Regarding pregnancy, I combine logic, common sense and throw in some empathy. I derive that it's fucking painful, and I'm grateful that I will never have to experience it. That's about as far as I need to take it.

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Sam Winchester

The screams of pain in the delivery should go a long way towards convincing any man how painful childbirth is. Just imagine having a really bad dump in a toilet. One which nearly rips the arse out of you. Then multiply that by about a thousand and you probably still won't even approach the kind of pain a woman feels during childbirth.

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Necromortis

I've always wanted to see a study that showed adrenaline levels, brainwave patterns, etc. etc. (I really don't know much about biology unfortunately, but I'm sure there's a few indicators that would trigger when one is in pain) between childbirth and a full fledged kick to the nuts.

Although something tells me childbirth would be more painful, it'd still be an interesting study to see.

Who wants to volunteer?

~Christian

alanmt

One can compare levels of pain of different painful injuries/diseases/experiences that one has and loosely extrapolate the nature of other people's experiences from there. Such comparisons are bound to be subjective, because it seems that different people feel different amounts of pain from similar causes, because dealing with and expression of pain is also affected by willpower, and because there is a significant tendency of people to exaggerate their pain.

In my work, people are often asked to measure their pain on a scale of 1 to 10, to help their doctor or a jury identify its severity, and I am often irritated at the large percentage of people who characterize their pain as a 10, when what they are suffering is nothing more than discomfort or mild pain.

In one of my less empathetic moments, I chewed out my own poor father during his rehab for saying his pain was a ten. I told him that a 10 ought to be reserved for the pain of such things as being burnt alive, and such pain as to be so agonizing that the the only way for the body to deal with it is for the person to lose consciousness. I told him to buck up and deal with his level 7 pain like a man. He was quite angry, but he did begin putting more effort into rehab.

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WriterDude

Of course I'm not saying child birth isn't painful, but how can a guy know just how painful it is? Even better, how can a woman know how painful it is to another woman? We all have different levels of pain tolerance, so what one person thinks is so painful he or she might pass out might be a minor thing to another person. Not that I think anyone will think child birth is a minor thing, of course.

But if someone can figure out how to do it, I am more than willing to try being pregnant for nine months and give birth the natural way.

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tristiano

Actually, just to point it out, you CAN determine what hurts more, a kick in the balls or child birth. All you have to do is pop a scanner on the brain and check out the pain area. Ok, it's a bit more complex than that, but you can do something to measure how much pain someone is in.

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Kast13

They say child birth is like a guy passing a golf ball through his penis.

lin

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

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WriterDude

Passing a golf ball through my penis sounds incredible painful, but it wouldn't hurt much at all if I knew the end result would be worth it. It's just what weights more. The quick pain now or the many years of happiness afterwards.

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seigfried007

Well, I'm 7-mos preggers now and I've already popped out two kids.

Trying to compare pain for one person or even from one labor/pregnancy to another is pointless. Judging pain by the amount of screaming is also pointless (I apologize profusely and sometimes cry when I'm in severe pain--I also, apparently, call my husband "Mom").

Some women have easy pregnancies and labors. Some women are asleep through most of the labor or only have two hard contractions before the kid's out. Others have difficult pregnancies and/or labors (pre-eclampsia, seizures, severe joint pain, pinched nerves in the legs and hips, incompetent cervix, increased allergies, weakened immune systems, severe nausea leading to weight loss; prolonged labor greater than eight hours and up to days, hematoma and accompanied swelling of the netherregions, blood-curdling constipation, shoving a 9-lb infant out said nethrregions...)

Labor and pregnancy are different for every woman and different for every birth. My m-i-l had a horrible birth for my husband but only two contractions and a good shove for the next baby. I've been induced twice and my labors were 22hrs and 14hrs (after several hours of intensely painful labor, both required an epidural because my cervix refused to dilate without narcotics and my uterus would actually get confused and push the kid further up instead of of out). But m-i-l never needed an epidural (and thus, I get to be a big wuss in comparison for not having that glorified natural childbirth).

Something moving in there is only disgusting if it's not a baby, Damien. Obviously, you wouldn't know, but it's actually pretty neat and a great way to get to know a baby before it comes out. You can learn if the kid's nocturnal, for instance. You can also feel when it's playful, excited, startled, afraid, tired, sleeping or ill.

It's odd to feel a baby moving around there, but it's not a bad feeling--just weird--unless it's putting in a rec room or pulling off the great Flying Squirrel or Strong Man maneuvers. Then, yeah, it's painful. And very hard to breathe.

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Malone

How well does the epideral work? My mom didn't use one when she had me, but she did for both my little brother and sister. I know it goes into the spine, but because there is amount of pushing involved, I always wondered just how numbing it was.

And to my earlier fighting comment, I should have added instilling quick wit and a good sense of laid back humor is just as important as the fighting.

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JosephB

double post.

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JosephB

I think in the old days, you couldn't feel anything. It blocked all feeling from the waist down. I think the drawback was a woman sometimes couldn't push the baby out and they'd have to do a c-section.

Now the epidural doesn't fully numb you below the waist, and a women can move around and to push during contractions.

My wife had one with our first, but there were problems and she needed a c-section, so they ended up giving giving her the full epidural anyway. She said it was very disconcerting -- she felt nothing, like she was paralyzed.

__________________
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
-- Albert Einstein

"I am really only interested in a fiction of miracles."
-- Flannery O'Connor