rhutchin

From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childbi...risks_of_birth

"The most important factors affecting mortality in childbirth are adequate nutrition and access to quality medical care ("access" is affected both by the cost of available care, and distance from health services). "Medical care" in this context does not refer specifically to treatment in hospitals, but simply the presence of an attendant with midwifery skills. A 1983-1989 study by the Texas Department of Health revealed that the infant death rate was 0.57% for doctor-attended births, and 0.19% for births attended by non-nurse midwives. Conversely, some studies demonstrate a higher perinatal mortality rate with assisted home births.[6] It is generally accepted that in developed countries, properly assisted home births carry no greater risks than hospital birth for low-risk pregnancies. Around 80% of pregnancies are low-risk. Factors that may make a birth high risk include prematurity, high blood pressure, diabetes and previous cesarean section.

One of the most dangerous risks to the fetus is that of premature birth, and its associated low neonatal weight. The more premature (or underweight) a baby is, the greater the risks for neonatal death and for pulmonary, respiratory, neurological or other sequelae. About 12% of all infants born in the United States are born prematurely. In the past 25 years, medical technology has greatly improved the chances of survival of premature infants in industrialized nations. In the 1950s and 1960s, approximately half of all low birth weight babies in the US died. Today, more than 90% survive. The first hours of life for "premies" are critical, especially the very first hour of life. Rapid access to a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit is of paramount importance."

Anat

rhutchin, you are talking about an industrial society. In a peasant society nutrition is generally worse (insufficient protein and essential micronutrients due to a diet based mostly on grain) so high-risk pregnancies should be more prevalent. Also, those homebirths you cited are usually assisted by midwives.

rhutchin

Yep. If the Hebrew women had good diets, did not get cesaerian sections to deliver children, and were in good health, they probably could get by without a midwife We actually do not know. From the written account, we find that the midwives arrived on the scene after the baby was born. Given Pharaoh's complaint and questioning of the midwives, we might guess that the babies (at least the boys) were not dying from complications for otherwise we would expect him to be satisfied with the behavior of the midwives.

Regardless, there is no reason to conclude that a conflict exists between the statement that the midwives were saving the boy babies and their statement that the Hebrew women gave birth before they arrived.

Anat

How could slaves have had a good diet?

Archaeologists have shown that once humanity moved from hunting-and-gathering to herding and peasant farming health deteriorated, life expectancy dropped, bone diseases, tooth decay etc became prevalent.

EthnAlln

That is "implicit" only to someone who shuts his eyes in blind faith. The VERY CLEAR implicit meaning of the passage is that the midwives deliberately disobeyed the Pharaoh and then lied about it.

But let's not get sidetracked here. The whole story is so obviously a legend concocted from the Hebrew point of view that it is foolish to treat it as serious history.

How in the world can this be a serious question now, more than 3000 years later? We don't begin to have any evidence that could decide the question, and the evidence that we do have strongly implies that the entire story was invented out of whole cloth.

EthnAlln

Translation: The text is inconvenient, so I'll make it mean whatever I want it to mean.

How can that be a serious question 3000 years later? We don't have an iota of evidence that anything of the kind even happened, much less what the actions and motives of the individual characters in the story were. The whole thing is so obviously concocted from a Hebrew point of view that it is absurd to take it as anything but a pious legend.

EthnAlln

Not drowning them. Do you always have this much trouble reading?

rhutchin

No trouble at all. Now address the issue. Is it because the widwives were NOT present when the baby was born that they did not drown the baby as the historical account says OR Were they present at birth, contrary to that which the midwives claimed, and refuse to take the baby boys out and drown them?

Anyone can read what the text says. Would you care to speculate (and provide a logical arguemnt for your position) on what the text does not tell us?

rhutchin

Hardly. I amn looking at the text and using the information that it gives me. Like the man says on CSI, follow the evidence.

OK. Then strip it down to the facts given in the text.

1. The midwives saved the Hebrew babies.
2. The midwives arrived after the Hebrew mothers gave birth.

We do not know how the midwives saved the babies other than by arriving after the brith had occurred.

rhutchin

Very clear? It seems clear that we have an accurate historical account that, for some reason, you cannot accept. Why would you even care if the account is true? Why do you have to make it a false account? Are you afraid for it to be true?