RE: Does the Battle of the Sexes Begin in the Womb?

You are viewing a single comment's thread from:

RE: Does the Battle of the Sexes Begin in the Womb?

agmoore in #steemstem • 7 years ago

Well, I think the geneticists are guessing. One day they may find this theory of parental conflict ridiculous. I don't know. But I do recall that when I carried both my children I had trouble with my teeth (cavities) and the dentist said this was common during pregnancy. So the fact that a child draws resources from the mother is actually quite feasible. How else does the fetus live, but from the mother's resources?

I love this comment:

(Young) children accept the differences between people without thinking, and envy can probably only develop if it is suggested to them

I think so. We are taught to notice minor differences (and it is minor). As for envying the womb--I agree both penis envy and womb envy seem like absurd propositions to me, reserved for the pathologically inclined :))

So glad you appear to have recouped somewhat. Get strong. Be well. Have fun here. That's the important part.

7 years ago in #steemstem by agmoore

0.00 JAHM

1 vote

Sort:

Trending

[-]

erh.germany 7 years ago

Oh, I can remember the same, of course the fetus uses the mother as a resource. I had bleeding gums all the time during pregnancy and aweful heartburn. But again I had a radiant soft skin, my hair was shiny and healthy like never before, etc.

It is not quite right in my eyes that the fetus exhausts the mother as far as the nutrition of the mother tries to balance the substances that are taken from her and carried into the placenta for nutritional value. That is why I think that the typical appetite for other foods than what one usually knows from oneself comes. So I ate lamb with great preference during my pregnancy, but have never touched it again since then, because I cannot stand the taste.
But it tasted great at that time and I had a lot of pleasure with it. I don't think much of such one-sided cause-effects, most of the time it is much more complex.

Nevertheless it's interesting to read your article, but I thought it had something completely different to do with the fact that this imprinting of the father's genes was something else. ... Anyway, thank you for the memories of the pregnancy. ... Oh... were there differences in food preferences as you have a boy and a girl?

0.00 JAHM

1 vote

[-]

agmoore 7 years ago

When I wrote this, I was actually more interested in the role environment has on inheritance and development. I think that is a pressing concern, something we can affect through policy. Genomic imprinting (epigenetics) offers a great opportunity to separate genetic destiny from external influences. This blog would have been far too long if I explored that, but this is where I am going. This has implications not only for social policy but also for health--all kinds of diseases (metabolic, psychological, cancers) have been associated with mistakes in methylation. Anyway, the battle of the sexes was just a hook :)

During my pregnancies I was hungry all the time. I ate well but wisely. Carried fruit around with me to stave off cravings. I was quite an omnivore :)

I think that your description of diet during pregnancy makes a good point: we don't have scarcity of food resources. We don't have to worry about rationing because we have abundance. Maybe this system of limiting the growth of the fetus evolved in a time of scarcer resources, when we were hunter gatherers and food supply was not certain. Just a thought....

I see you have a post! Look forward to reading it!

0.00 JAHM