The Earth & Our Bodies
Examining how we give birth and its inevitable impact on our planet.
In a time when capitalism has been named King, I would like to inquire how this has changed our biology from an anthropological and ethical perspective.
The most noticeable physical changes in human beings have occurred just in the last 10,000 years and are mainly attributed to genetics, environment, and lifestyle. Scientists discovered that human bodies have gotten smaller due to the development of agriculture and climate change. Many people suffered from malnutrition as they ate a more restricted diet due to the fact that their livelihoods were now dependent on agricultural practices. This continues to be a problem for humans today. According to evolutionary biologists, our bodies will continue to change because the conditions around us, including our lifestyle and environment, keep changing.
More specifically, our brains are quite adaptive. The word neuroplasticity is derived from the Greek, neura (nerve) and plastikós (suitable for molding). When we think about the brain and neuroplasticity, there is a phenomenon often described as “use it or lose it”. This accounts the central nervous systems’ ability to reorganize neural connections in response to an injury or a learning event and allows the brain to adapt and make changes depending on events or experiences. When a human does a task repeatedly, then the human brain is able to adapt. However, if they stop performing the task and do not follow through with the repetition, the adaptive ability is gone. Consequently, the possible new neural pathways are lost until they return to the practice.
I often think about how this relates to childbirth. Pregnancy is one of the most profoundly neuroplastic events in a woman’s life. Quite literally, the brain goes through a period of remodeling during pregnancy and after childbirth.
One of the ways in which researchers are studying prenatal development is through behavioral genetics. Behavioral geneticists are trying to learn about how we might inherit certain behavioral traits and how environmental factors can affect whether we actually display those traits or not. How can we not address the high stress environment in hospitals where most women find themselves birthing?
Medical induction seems to have become a cultural norm in the United States. This means we must rely on medical interventions in order for the baby to be born. Does this disconnect us from the neurological learning event of spontaneous labor? How does this affect our biology?
It is no secret that that these archaic systems in place are detrimental to maternal health outcomes. Medical racism is still alive, which is well documented in medical research and yet these systems do not seem to take accountability. We are indoctrinated to believe that giving birth in the hospital is safest. But for whom?
None of this is being said to degrade modern medicine when there is a circumstance, a deviation from normal, that merits the need for scientific (and lifesaving) intervention. This is to merely help open your eyes to the reality that you get to decide what feels normal for your body.
Childbirth has become an extremely reliable stream of revenue for the medical establishment. Therefore, it is not perceived by most allopathic doctors as a healthy, physiological event, but rather a condition that must be cured through the use of medical interventions.
It is through the commodification of our healthcare system and its practices that have generated quite a tumultuous path for anyone brave enough to walk down. Health is now a luxury, reserved for the elite. When you take a step back, it becomes startling how rapidly the United States is falling behind in quality of life compared to other developed nations.
The whole purpose of our healthcare system is to save lives but when I think about the energy required and the waste produced every day, it is enough to make my head spin. The single-use instruments, the plastic, the computers, the electricity and the staff it takes to keep it all running. The environmental repercussions of excessive medical waste is a problem we cannot afford to run away from anymore.
How we give birth matters and has a lasting impact on future generations.
There are undoubtedly ramifications when we discredit our bodies’ intelligent and innate unfurling. We become limited in our capacity to see the naturally occurring and often reliable cycles found within ourselves. It divorces us from the truth which is that we are all human beings, navigating a world that is progressing and changing faster than our brains can keep up with. As our environment quickly changes, so too are our bodies. The path of least resistance (convenience) does not always yield the most healthy result.
Similarly, we are all aware of the effects of climate change. Do we complacently sit back and allow our climate to become more volatile without trying to make modifications across industries in order to improve the health and wellbeing of our planet?
What we do to our planet, we are doing to our bodies as well.
One day in the not so far distant future we will have the ability to grow babies in artificial wombs inside of a lab. It sounds like sci-fi, but it’s already happening. Right now it is being peddled to the public as a means to reduce preterm death but who gets to decide if this technology can be used in other ways? Will we willingly accept this as the new normal?
Just because we have the technology to do something, does not necessarily mean it is for the betterment of humanity.
No matter how birth unfolds for you, it is a practice of returning to the earth. We are all here together as an integral part of the cycles found within Nature. We are not linear beings. The more we try to resist, interfere, fight or control, the more ruthless Mother Nature becomes… to remind us that we do not and will never have the final say.