Tattoos on ancient Egyptian women appear to ask for protection during childbirth | Hacker News Reader

Tattoos on ancient Egyptian women appear to ask for protection during childbirth

phys.org

89 pointsdiodorus38 comments

One interesting type of childbirth magic in India and the Islamic world used magic squares. Why would contemplating the arithmological coherence of magic squares help a woman give birth? Maybe, just maybe, it would bring the woman’s mind off the present pain and provide a calming effect.

https://shwep.net/oddcast/bink-hallum-on-magic-squares/

Fair enough, in 1900 in the UK something like 1 in 5 births had either the mother or the child die.[0]

[0] Partially remembered stats from somewhere. Possibly history of medicine GCSE textbook read in 1990’s. Could be wrong. Someone else can Google it.

Aye. Human pregnancy is an absolute mess. Far and away the worst of the primates, which themselves are pretty bad amongst the mammals. It's like a war between mother and child, each pursuing a path that will kill the other, and if they make it through the nine months, there's that final stage where human biology really shows another major design flaw (so to speak - "design" is of course entirely the wrong word for this mess).

I can't find the article now but I remember reading someone arguing it's not like a war, but an actual war. The child is designed to take advantage of every last concession the body of the mother can provide, and the mother in turn has developed defense mechanisms such as the uterus, which is a very hostile place for a fetus but protects the maternal body from the worst of it.

Try to grow a fetus in any other body part and it will consume its host like the worst parasite. It's definitely an adversarial relationship.

https://aeon.co/essays/why-pregnancy-is-a-biological-war-bet...

https://theconversation.com/pregnancy-cooperative-paradise-o...

https://radiolab.org/episodes/everybodys-got-one

I feel like I should add some kind of warning regarding the above content. It frames the situation in what I find to be somewhat unsettling terms.

The first link there is to the article I remember! Thanks.

In my experience from the outside, pregnancy makes women happier.

I suspect you are victim to sampling error. Pregnancy is a very individual experience, with a broad range of reactions.

That's why I qualified it smarty pants.

And that’s why they qualified their statement. To give people immediate info to remember your experience may not be typical.

He somehow "knew" I was victim to sampling error. His reading comprehension is terrible.

"I suspect" doesn't mean "I am absolutely certain" so maybe your own reading comprehension is the issue?

But you see, I put "knew" in quotes. So looks like your reading comprehension isn't that great either.

Every one is wrong in this inconsequential situation except you!

Don't start nothing, won't be nothing ;-)

And then they grow up and become teenagers and it gets really bad.

Is that because hips mechanics on humans are optimized for femurs close for upright walking?

In her book (and later a television show) "Call The Midwife", the author Jennifer Worth recalls that while she was in school she picked up a medical book from the 1890s and she read this sentence: "Should labor continue for more than 10 days, the services of a doctor should be asked for."

It's interesting that other peoples that were in contact with the Egyptians, or were aware of their ways, had strict prohibitions against marking their skin:

https://www.sefaria.org/Leviticus.19.28?lang=bi&aliyot=0

And, I'll add, the people who had these restrictions are still here, and the Egyptians of this era have been conquered by the Arab world and this culture no longer exists.

is it interesting?

What are you trying to say here?

People are still tattooed in Egypt, usually peasants IIRC

Giving birth is violent, we should push for in-vitro birth as soon as possible

The only way to make sure we can safely reproduce during space travel / planet missions

No thanks.

if you don't experiment; you are at the mercy of mother nature

if you don't experiment; you let your enemies master the bio-science including stem-cell engineering

being able to create babies that are cancer immune, allergy immune, virus immune with an enhanced brain including vision with ultrasounds detection capabilities

if you don't experiment; you'll end up being an Ape that shit itself and need to wipe the poop with toilet paper, while your enemies will become ascended humans

sounds funny, but has lot of meaning

This sci-fi story is not as fun as you think.

"you want to go to the moon? HERESY, BURN HIM! WITCH!"

I don't really. There's no air up there, and nothing but rocks.

But you be my guest.

i know we live in a selfish society, but did you know the earth and the sun are not immortal?

I wish they were making another season of Raised by Wolves.

Things were workinf out great for those space kids.

With modern medicine giving birth is very safe. I'm not sure if it's with what happened with Roe V Wade or something else but I've seen an uptick of people who seem to believe that a woman giving birth in a 1st world country in 2022 is basically rolling the dice with their life. Women do still die, but it's extremely rare now.

C-sections and monitoring as well as modern medicine.

I think you might want to expand your concerns beyond death. I don’t know a woman who doesn’t hand a first or second hand account (I.e. they directly experienced or directly know someone who has experienced) significant up to life threatening health complications during or shortly after pregnancy.

Additionally it’s known that pregnancy permanently alters the bones and makes them more fragile.

Bwaha. I take it you’ve never assisted in a birth?

It’s far from safe.

With good medical care and a competent team of specialists nearby, it’s rare for a mother to die during it now.

Those two are not the same thing, at all.

I thought nothing about childbirth until my wife discovered she had some issues getting pregnant, and that started us down a deep dark rabbit hole of finding out more.

Along the way we also found out many of her friends and my friends’ wives also had serious issues getting pregnant, or had developed serious issues while pregnant or giving birth.

Now both of us are scared to have a child.

I think it's riskier to depend on external technology for child production. Not just at the first level (the "womb" part, the monitors, the process controllers), but at the second level, for the inevitable variety of complex consumables (media, fluids, hormones) which would be required, each of which will require their own supply chains and production processes.

Complex dependencies as of today tend not have a unit of production smaller than a factory, not just for assembly lines and such, but also because smaller entities cannot ensure the supply of a team of trained people who can continuously hold on to the knowledge required to keep the process going.

I guess it all depends how far down the "tech tree" you're imagining.

When you pack down a supply chain in the absolutely most advanced and robust way possible, IMHO it starts to look a lot like the biological wombs, eggs and seeds we already have.

Why do we no longer unwrap mummies, as the article states?

I expect it's impossible to do so without damaging them, and it's no longer necessary with modern imaging techniques.

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