I know! You should have seen the way the staff reacted when the nurse looked and exclaimed, “The head is already out!” Mass confusion erupted! Muahahahaha!

They don’t, actually. I’ve been following a documentary about a group of chimps for years and chimps birth in all kinds of positions. Crouching, reclining, on hands and feet, but never flat on their backs.

Of course its ridiculous, that’s why I choose out as an analogy. Its also very ridiculous to suggest that a human giving birth on her hands and knees is unnatural and she will hurt her baby.

I actually completely agree with you (about the horse part). But the best “analogy” is to humans, who, you know, before hospital births, most often did not/do not birth on their backs. And the idea h&k would somehow harm the baby (in the absence of some truly unusual circumstance I can’t even think of) is ludicrous. In fact, in the case of shoulder dystocia, h&k can be life saving.

Furthermore, when it comes to apes, I don’t know if they birth with attendants, but humans “naturally” do, so h&k is still pretty practical for us. Regardless, afaik, the most “natural” (typical/effective) position is squatting, which would also be the easiest in which to catch the baby and bring it up to one’s chest. Human or ape.

I don’t understand the physiognomy here — how would it be easier to reach down and get the baby if you’re flat on your back? It’s easier if you’re upright and able to flex your spine to get the trunk closer to the vagina. Try it — would you be able to insert a tampon while lying flat on your back? Yet it’s easy to do it if you’re sitting upright because your spine flexes easier when you’re upright. And it would be even easier to access one’s own vagina if one were on her knees because you’d have even more spinal flexion and you’d be able to shift and flex your hips.

Just did a quickie Google search, and the first chimp birth that came up was this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bF_T3wBE14 Momma chimp starts on her head. No, really. LOL. Then she rolls into a C position, pushes a minute and then gets on hands and feet. She moves around a lot right before the final push, but the actual birth takes place while she’s standing, and the baby chimp is delivered onto the ground. Then she picks him up.

The second search return is this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFjhDjI_ABE in which the mother chimp birthed in a squat, again birthing the chimp onto the ground and then picking him up.

My comment fell into moderation purgatory, but I googled “How chimps give birth” and the first two videos that popped up show chimps giving birth in an upright position. I hope this comment makes it through. The other one has the urls to the videos, but you can repeat the search yourself if you’re interested.

Regardless of the whole animal analogy, depictions of birth from earliest recorded history until just this past century have shown women giving birth in a variety of upright positions (squatting, kneeling, H&K, standing…). Even now, in parts of the world not dominated by the practice of obstetrics (which as we know is barely 100 years old) the preferred position for birth is anything but supine. That’s just physiology.

The doctor in the OP’s comment was simply making a stupid remark to cover up his/her desire to have the mom in the position most convenient to the doctor, regardless of whether it was helpful to the woman pushing out the human.

Why would you need to give birth on your back to reach down and pick up the baby and put it on your chest? Actually, that’s the wrong question because I know you don’t need to, I gave birth squatting, caught my own baby and picked him up and held him to my chest. I really can’t see how being on your back would help with that. It makes it further to reach.