Is There Sorrow in Childbirth?

Published February 4,1982. If the present trends continue most young women will give birth to one or more children sometime during their lives. Only 5 percent of married women today choose not to have children and another 5-10 percent are not physically able to do so. But what are the attitudes of contemporary young women towards childbirth?

Having never borne a child, and likely never to do so, other males and I can only vicariously experience the birth process with women. And because of this, men should be cautious in trying to explain childbirth to young women. Perhaps this is best related by women to women.

And that is my concern. As a family life educator, I am concerned what women who have had children are saying to young women who are yet to experience the birth process.

On one hand, most young women have matronly aunts who repeatedly assure them that childbirth is the closest thing to death without actually dying. Women supposedly walk through the valley of the shadow of death when giving birth to a child. And perhaps some do.

On the other hand, some young women are assured by women such as their mother, grandmother, sister, or youth leader that bringing a newborn infant into the world through childbirth is a highly religious and spiritual experience, often attained with little discomfort. And perhaps for some this is true as well.

Many young women are confused about childbirth because of a biblical passage in the Old Testament. In the Garden of Eden, it is recorded that God said to Eve, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children” (Genesis 3:16).

Is conception and childbirth actually a sorrowful experience?

Dr. Hugh W. Nibley, eminent Bible scholar at Brigham Young University has recently made an interesting comment about this particular scripture. Dr. Nibley points out that “sorrow” in the Bible does not have the same meaning as the way we currently use the word.

According to the dictionary, the contemporary meaning of sorrow is “grief, sadness, disappointment, regret, an affliction, a misfortune, or trouble.” The BYU professor points out that this is hardly what God meant childbirth to be to Eve, since he also told Adam, “In sorrow shalt thou eat of it (food) all the days of thy life . . . In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Genesis 3:17.19).

The biblical meaning of the word “sorrow,” according to Dr. Nibley, is “with great effort,” or “to have a hard time.” In other words, neither childbirth nor earning life’s daily bread was to be attained with ease. Both would require effort, hard work, and, in many cases, tears.

Considering the attendant joy which often accompanies childbirth, or in doing satisfying work, Dr. Nibley’s comments become very meaningful. Neither childbirth nor hard work need be sorrowful experience the way we use the word today.

It is my observation that childbirth is still a marvelous experience for the vast majority of men and women. When I have sat by Susan’s bedside while she is in labor with our children, she has assured me she has never experienced pain as intense as she does at that time.

But when we witness together the birth of our child, she has also told me she has never experienced joy as intensely as during the moment of elation when the child is born.

And perhaps that is still the miracle of childbirth.

If others have comments on this topic, I’d like to hear from you.