Childbirth and Orgasms

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Can childbirth be orgasmic? That’s the topic of discussion I’ve had lately. It started when I learned about the movie Orgasmic Birth and shared it. Then a conversation on Twitter reminded me of a book I read a few years ago that I loved called Sex, Time, and Power: How Women’s Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution by Leonard Shlain. It was the first time I had heard of orgasms and childbirth being related.

According to Shlain a woman’s body is designed so that as the baby is born the right buttons get pushed. The endorphin rush provides a natural pain relief that helps women make it through and be willing to do it again.

Let us consider why it would have been very beneficial to the survival of the human species for a woman in the throes of childbirth to experience an orgasm. Or, in unable to attain this extreme height, she would have, at the minimum, neurotransmitters tickling her brain’s synapses, diverting her attention away from the painful crushing occurring between her legs. How convenient for Natural Selection to arrange to have an internal morphine pump alleviating the pain of childbirth. The switch for it, abutting the back side of the pubic bone, would be indented “on” only when heavy pressure was applied - the kind of pressure that could happen routinely during birth, or in odd positions during sex. In a few women, the pump releases other psychoactive substances that can stimulate a woman to orgasm. [pg. 81]

He goes on to liken the experience to breastfeeding which can be extremely painful in the first days/weeks and yet the brain releases oxytocin, the love hormone, to make a mother fall in love with her baby and be willing to continue feeding the child. In a time when she couldn’t whip up a bottle of formula it was extremely important that a mother want to feed her baby. The loving, relaxing, calming sensations that wash over a mother when she breastfeed encourage her to keep doing it. Shlain feels the same about childbirth.

I propose that the human female orgasm was an evolutionary prize awarded to women because Gyna sapians became the first females to learn of copulation’s onerous and even deadly prize. [pg.82]

If you visit the orgasmic childbirth section of the Born Free site you can read quotes from women who have experienced orgasm during the childbirth. Some the type of orgasm you would expect during birth and some a more “becoming one with the universe” type of orgasm. You can also read an interview with Debra Pascali-Bonaro, the creator the Orgasmic Birth film.

[tags]orgasm, childbirth, orgasmic childbirth, natural childbirth[/tags]