Childbirth vs foalbirth.... · 3:15am Mar 4th, 2016
....and why it is wrong in many pony fics.
(PG)
There are many fimfics that either mention or describe foal birth.... and I have yet to read one that got it right.
So far, every fic I have read treats foal birth exactly the same as a human's childbirth.
Humans are bipeds.
Ponies are quadrupeds .
Humans have the worst childbirth experience on the planet because of our biped nature. In horses, once active labor starts... the foal will be out in less than 2 hours. The same stages in a human can take up to 20 hours (or more).
Why the difference?
The hole in the human pelvis is too small for a baby pass through, the baby can only go though by twisting 90 degrees half way through. In quadrupeds, they have a nice roomy hole in their pelvis to be squeezed out. (For some women, their waist is too small for the baby. In which case they have to do a C-Section 
or if they are in a country lacking modern medicine, they break their hips and hope the mother survives.
)
Why is the hole in the human pelvis too small?
All of our weight is supported by our pelvis. If the hole was any bigger (for the same size of hip), women would be breaking their hips every time they fell over. And back in prehistoric times... a broken hip meant death.... so natural selection prevented the pelvis becoming more roomy. Meanwhile quadrupeds only have to support half as much weight on their hips. Half the weight means that much bigger of a hole for a baby to pass through for a given hip size.
So why didn't humans evolve bigger hips so that we would have easier childbirths?
A good number of biologists have asked that over the years. So they did some computer simulations and found out that if you make human hips too wide, we can't run. (Biped balance issues) Being unable to run was more deadly for our ancestors than our extremely long and potentially deadly childbirths. Quadrupeds don't have those balance issues, so their hips can evolve wider as well.
Other Interesting Stats:
* Horses can delay childbirth up to 6 hours if they are feeling nervous or scared.
Huh... Didn't really think of that...
Heh! Ive been thinking about this all through calving season this year on the farm. Although i dont imagine having a foal with a horn would be terribly comfortable, especially not flurry heart, that thing was HUGE!
Hmm, that's extremely informative.
Thanks!