Bodies change over time; how does birth fit in to this picture?

Interesting article on how much our body types have changed (ok, using records of MEN from war documents, but still).

How does this play into the natural childbirth notion of "women's bodies know what to do"? I've always had trouble with that argument, based on my understanding of nutrition, culture and illness in past times. And, as Sheryl Nestel points out in her article, "Other Mothers: race and representation in natural childbirth discourse" in Resources for Feminist Research Winter 1994/95, vol 23 (4):5, racial notions underlie much of the rhetoric in past efforts to promote natural childbirth. I especially appreciate her reading of the film "birth in the squatting position" as one which "depends for its resonance on powerful cultural understandings of the raced female body as primitively sexual and prolifically reproductive". How do we understand this film's place in efforts to promote unnecessary medical interventions?

In some ways, one would think that women's bodies would be even better equipped to give birth these days, with adequate nutrition, bigger bodies, etc. if we take the argument that bodies today are bigger, healthier because of adequate prenatal nourishment, and improved nutrition in the first two years of life.

Biology, culture and medical practice. A fluid and complex mix of forces..... food for thought.


HEALTH July 30, 2006
The New Age: So Big and Healthy Grandpa Wouldn’t Even Know You
By GINA KOLATA
The past 100 years has seen a change from small, sickly people to humans who are so robust their ancestors are almost unrecognizable.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/health/30age.html?ex=1154923200&en=7ddec209c7d2821b&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Roe versus Reality — Abortion and Women's Health
Alexi A. Wright, M.D., and Ingrid T. Katz, M.D., M.H.S.
"Sandra Jones was on her way to a Nebraska operating room to have an abscess drained when she learned that, once again, she had defied medical odds. Six months earlier, doctors had diagnosed breast cancer in the 31-year-old mother of two. Because her test results were positive for the breast cancer susceptibility gene 1 (BRCA1) and she was at high risk for ovarian cancer and recurrent breast cancer, they had recommended bilateral mastectomy, chemotherapy, and a hysterectomy, but Jones (whose name has been changed to protect her privacy) was not ready to give up childbearing. Her doctors warned that though it would be extremely difficult for her to conceive after chemotherapy, she should actively avoid pregnancy for at least six months, since it would complicate her disease and the drugs would increase the risk of serious birth defects. After struggling through treatment, Jones returned home to find that her husband had left her. Now, a few weeks later, routine preoperative tests revealed that she was pregnant. "

This is an interesting look at the human costs of US abortion policy and politics.