英语听力文摘 English Digest 376、为什么生孩子很痛苦？

Why Giving Birth Hurts
为什么生孩子很痛苦？

Y: Don, you sure are lucky don’t have to give birth. I’m glad we’re an intelligent species, but boy, that infant head feels mighty¹ large going through that narrow birth canal. And then, after all that, the baby comes out facing down and backwards², which means you’re helpless to assist it, or even to untangle it from the umbilical cord.

D: Well, Yeal. According to evolutionary³ anthropologists, babies of the earliest humans had a fifty-fifty chance of coming out facing backwards. This was a result of humans learning to walk on two feet. As the pelvis became optimized for walking, the birth canal developed twists and turns that meant the baby had to rotate in order to keep its head and shoulders aligned⁴ with the widest part at all times.

Y: And then our brains also got bigger.

D: Which meant more twists and turns.

Y: And backwards-facing babies, stupid,huh?

D: Well,you know,Yeal.Some of the earliest humans learned to compensate⁵ for the difficulty of giving birth by receiving assistance during childbirth, which made a huge difference in terms of survival.

Y: So there might be an evolutionary advantage to having someone help you give birth.

D: Some anthropologists certainly think so and conjecture that human females who gave birth to backwards-facing babies, and females who had assistance because they felt particularly anxious about the birth, ended up doing better than females who didn’t. After all, if problems arise during labor⁶, having another person around can make the difference between life and death.

 

Y: 唐，你很幸运不用生孩子。我很高兴人类有着聪明才智，但是天啊，婴儿的脑袋要从狭窄的产道出来，那是很痛苦的。而且，经历过这一切后，宝宝出来是面向下和倒过来的，你根本没办法协助它，或者甚至不能帮忙解开脐带。

D: 根据人类进化学家，人类早期时候的婴儿生出来是有二分之一的可能性是面向后面的。这是人类学习用两只脚走路的结果。随着盆骨越来越适应走路，产道就变得迂回曲折，婴儿就得旋转过来保持它的头和肩膀总是与最宽的部分在同一平面上。

Y: 然后头也会变得更大。

D: 也意味着更多的扭转。

Y: 倒着出生的婴儿，很可笑吧。

D: 你知道吗？最早时期的人类学会弥补分娩的困难，他们通过在分娩是接受援助，这在生存方面起了非常重要的作用。

Y: 因此，也许有一种进化优势能请人帮助你生育。

D: 一些人类学家当然也这么想过，并且他们推测那些女性生下面向后面的婴儿，和在生育时得到帮助的女性比没有援助的生育女性生产更顺利。毕竟，在分娩时有问题出现，有人在身边是能够于生死之间起到很大作用。

1 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

2 backwards   

adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地

参考例句：

• He turned on the light and began to pace backwards and forwards.他打开电灯并开始走来走去。
• All the girls fell over backwards to get the party ready.姑娘们迫不及待地为聚会做准备。

3 evolutionary   

adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的

参考例句：

• Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
• These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。

4 aligned   

adj.对齐的，均衡的

参考例句：

• Make sure the shelf is aligned with the top of the cupboard.务必使搁架与橱柜顶端对齐。

5 compensate   

vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消

参考例句：

• She used her good looks to compensate her lack of intelligence. 她利用她漂亮的外表来弥补智力的不足。
• Nothing can compensate for the loss of one's health. 一个人失去了键康是不可弥补的。

6 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。