The Design of Giving Birth

As I learn more about how pregnancy works with Theresa I can't help but get the impression that its design falls short. For example, gestational disease is a common problem that happens because the mother's body, in an effort to compensate for her inability to ingest enough calories to enable the baby to grow, overshoots making her resistant to insulin. Or take how the mother's body temporarily disables its immune system to keep it from attacking the baby. In both these cases it seems like the designer (god, mother nature, what have you) discovered these problems after "going live" with the product and rushed out hack solutions, rather than altering the original design. My co-worker, Howie, remarked that it was like she designed the human so that it could live and function properly, then realized that she should also figure out how to make her able to reproduce. Or perhaps the requirements of human birth have continued to grow, pushing past some assumptions in the original design (eg. The head won't be all that big: true in anteaters, not so true with homo sapiens).

Not to say this whole birthing thing is a non functioning mess. Au contrair, for all the aches and pains, all the numbers indicate that it's quite robust. Remarkably so.