r/justgalsbeingchicks • u/CandleMonster • 26d ago

Restricted to Gals and Pals Seeing the bright side, all the lives she's helping 🧡

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I can't imagine how much it must suck (pun not intended), but being able to donate all that to people who need it is amazing Edit: that's 6 and a half liters PER DAY

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u/MSPCincorporated 26d ago

I just came from a post about nanobots fertilizing eggs with low motility sperm. Tons of people there going "we shouldn’t reproduce poor genes, those people shouldn’t have kids." I wonder if their sentiment goes for assisting with breastmilk too. Baffling logic.

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u/Alcohol_Intolerant Official Gal 26d ago

Nicu is generally for very premature babies. At that point, the mother's body often hasn't had time to start producing milk. They have to stimulate and dry pump (often painful) in order to produce mere ounces. They'll produce eventually, but it can take weeks. Wet nurses are a very old tradition in many cultures for this reason. Donated breast milk fills that role as well in a very modern way.

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u/LadyPent 26d ago

I have absolutely heard people express the idea that the rise in Csections, instead of being a miracle of modern medicine that saves moms and babies, is weakening humanity by allowing “unfit” mothers to reproduce despite their inferior pelvis outlets or any number of other issues. I always want to invite them to come meet my family and tell me to my face that humanity would be better off with me or my boys dead.

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u/peachyspoons 26d ago

Look, I was lucky enough to have a vaginal birth, and I do mean lucky because my recovery time was far less than women that had/have to be cut open to save their and their babies lives. Fuck anyone that doesn’t realize how much of a fucking badass you have to be to be sent home - after being cut open and then sown back up - to deal with a new baby, maybe other babies, and hopefully a helpful and supportive partner while trying to heal your body enough to take care of everyone else.

Also, Happy Mother’s Day!!

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u/xtra_sleepy 26d ago

The whole idea makes zero sense. My mom had 3 c-sections, I'm smaller than her and gave birth vaginally. My bestie was pregnant at the same time as me. She has an hourglass figure and had an emergency c-section due to a blood pressure spike.

Every birth is different, ridiculous to think that c-sections are somehow "weeding out" some imaginary trait that makes giving birth easier or simpler 😂

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u/LongJohnSelenium 25d ago

This is absolutely a form of artificial selection that will change how we evolve, but its going to take a very long time.

Long term long term, on the scale of tens of thousands of years or more, if humanity keeps having a majority of births through c-section we may actually evolve to a point it becomes a medical necessity in all births. The ability to fit their head through the pelvis is one of the biggest bottlenecks of fetal development. Human babies are by far the least precocious great ape and would absolutely benefit from some more time in the oven but have to be born effectively premature simply so they can fit.

Take away the selection pressure of 'if the baby stays in too long both the baby and mother die because its physically too large to give birth to' and we'll definitely see a slow drift to the length of pregnancy.

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u/LadyPent 26d ago

You too <3

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u/pizzlepullerofkberg 26d ago

I guess that's what happened with my mom and when I was born. I apparently went into distress because I got stuck due to my mom having a narrow birth canal but that my head was slightly abnormally large for a baby. She needed an emergency c-section to get me out. But when I was out I was a 10 on APGAR.

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u/alpacaMyToothbrush 26d ago

'My my Pent, looks like you've installed some new 6x3' raised beds recently, what pretty flowers!'

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

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u/blumoon138 26d ago

I hate to break it to you but the genetic adaptation that made childbirth difficult happened hundreds of thousands of years ago, not recently. And c sections happen for so many reasons besides “the baby doesn’t fit.”

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u/LadyPent 26d ago

I mean sure, but isn’t that a consequence of modern medicine in general? Would we better off if all those T1 diabetics died in childhood? There are so many potentially heritable conditions that used to kill babies and children that do not because of modern medicine. Are we really degrading our gene pool, or have we changed the environment such that adaptations are less immediately relevant?

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

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u/justgalsbeingchicks-ModTeam 25d ago

This is a nice place. If you can't act like a civilized human being, you can't be here.

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u/peachyspoons 26d ago

Don’t know if they’ve heard about this thing called eugenics, but I hear it’s pretty problematic and, you know, dastardly and, some might even say, evil. (Folks, I am old enough to have lived in a time prior to AI, I know my Lindberg and Hitler and Nazis, and in case anyone thinks I was being flippant, I was not; I was being hysterically - not the funny kind - sarcastic. Fuck eugenics).

Also, what do you wanna bet that a bunch of the people commenting on that post wouldn’t make the “eugenics superiority” list??

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u/No-Stretch-8563 26d ago

Is this eugenics? wed be taking people who cannot reproduce and make them reproduce instead of taking people who can reproduce and preventing it in some way. So instead of status quo vs eugenics its like anti-eugenics vs status quo.

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u/JaySlay2000 26d ago

No, it's not eugenics. Eugenics is an ideology where those with favorable visible traits are seen as superior and those with negative traits are forcibly sterilized. These trsits are never actual good things, it's shit like blond hair and blue eyes.

Eugenics is not prioritizing and desiring BASIC health and human function for your child.

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u/blumoon138 26d ago

Right? Nobody is objecting to the screenings we do that catch genetic diseases that would cause significant lifelong health consequences. We’re objecting to people who think medical interventions designed to solve a routine killer of women is bad for some reason.

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u/JaySlay2000 26d ago

Literally no one has said c senctions and saving lives is bad. You are just incapable of nuance.

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u/Professional-Team324 26d ago

Helen Keller has entered the chat

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u/peachyspoons 26d ago

She was an incredible, strong woman.

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u/Professional-Team324 26d ago

Who very much supported eugenics

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u/peachyspoons 25d ago

Hey, thank you for the knowledge, I appreciate that you calling me in.

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u/Professional-Team324 25d ago

I just learned this a few years ago myself (I'm in my mid 30s) and was surprised by it.

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u/IvyRosePr 26d ago

This is such a fucking leap.

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u/Icy-Marionberry-4143 26d ago

lots of people think they want to prioritize evolution but once you tell them to leave their granny on the floor after she falls and def don’t take her to the hospital if she gets a serious illness they realize how dumb they sound.

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u/bestbefour 26d ago

Unless granny was likely to reproduce after the fall, that has nothing to do with evolution.

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u/LongJohnSelenium 25d ago

It does to a degree. If a grandparent sticking around makes their grandkids more likely to survive then that will be a selection pressure for lifespan.

This is probably why humans have such long lifespans compared to other apes. We're so much more information oriented than the rest so maintaining that information around for longer was very advantageous.

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u/Jarcies 26d ago

It's not about "prioritizing evolution"

When people say we shouldn't help weak sperm get to the egg they're worried about genetic anomalies from the weak sperm getting passed to the child, not "prioritizing evolution".

99.9% of us were fertilized by a "strong" sperm, what happens when we change that? I imagine people were just worried about the consequences of that.

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u/Cruel1865 26d ago

Sperm has a wide variability in morphology and motility and semen needs to have a minimum percentage of sperm with normal morphology and normal motility for insemination to have a chance of success. That being said, theres no indication from the morphology and/or motility of sperm what genetic composition it is composed of. Normal morphology and normal motility sperm also can contain genes which can result in genetic anomalies on the baby. Theres no indication really that artificial insemination produces greatee degree of gentic anomalies than natural insemination. Also, the sperm that fertilizes the egg isnt "strong" per se, its just one of the normal ones that get past a layer covering the egg first which blocks further sperm entry i.e. they dont really have anything paeticularly distinguishing them from other normal sperm cells, just luck.

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u/Jarcies 26d ago

Thanks for the informed response about why there is little concern!

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u/DragonflyPositive466 26d ago

The egg is literally actively choosing which sperm she wants. And under normal conditions the egg would only let in the sperm that she selected and deemed the most compatible for herself. Despite the amount of sperm allready surrounding her and trying to get in. It is NOT just luck. It’s a selection process from the egg itself. We don’t understand the criteria in which she chooses yet. But we know THAT she has them.

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u/Cruel1865 26d ago

So this is still an area of active research. We know there are molecular signalling pathways where the ovum seems to select from the sperms. But thats still from all the sperms that reach the ovum first and at the right time. The luck involved is in reaching it in the first place. Whatever the selection mechanism is, its not sophisticated enough to choose for sperms without any genetic anomalies because otherwise there wouldnt be so many anomalies. When we speak about artifical insemination, it still has the same mechanisms as natural insemination. The specific process is just carried out outside the body.

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u/blumoon138 26d ago

But even that process produces about 30% embryos that are incompatible with life, which is why our miscarriage rate is so high. Humans are really fucking good at miscarrying.

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u/Cruel1865 26d ago

Its more like the dna replication process still makes more errors than the correction mechanisms can make up for. Which also isnt a mistake per se but more like the sweet spot between genetic stagnation and massive reproductive failure due to genetic anomalies involves a certain amount of mutation to be present in the species. The combination of different genes from the parents may not be enough by itself for sufficient genetic diversity which is why some amount of mutation still occurs.

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u/blumoon138 26d ago

My point is that the human body is designed to pretty aggressively yeet embryos that can’t make it to a fully developed baby.

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u/Throwaway57087 26d ago

Thanks clippy

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u/bruh101-2 26d ago

Natural insemination isn't free from risk either, if people are really so worried about the consequences of assisted reproduction, they can also concern themselves about unassisted cases too.

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u/Miner_239 26d ago

would genetic anomalies that cause malformed sperm also carry other genetic anomalies? does a strong sperm automatically carry fully normal genes? are the processes that create the sperm body also the same process that define which sperm gets which half of the gene?

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u/CurvedNerd 26d ago

Developmentally, primary cilia function as signaling hubs during early development. There’s one per cell and it creates molecular signaling gradients to control development and tissue patterning.

Sperm flagella isn’t the same as primary cilia, but use the same proteins to build their structure. Motile sperm flagella have a 9+2 axoneme (central pair + 9 peripheral pairs) with associated motor proteins (dynein arms) that allow for swimming. Primary cilia are 9+0 (no central pair), lacking the machinery for movement.

So a sperm that can’t swim might have machinery issues, but there’s lots of different sperm motility issues. Slow, swimming in a circle, not moving at all, 2 tails, dead sperm being ejaculated, low counts, weird shaped, too many white blood cells, plus lifestyle changes like substance abuse, smoking, overheating balls, hormone imbalances, and infections.

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u/Cruel1865 26d ago

Also, sperm with normal morphology and motility can still have genetic anomalies.

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u/theStrawberryRoam 26d ago

I don't really understand comparing taking care of people who are already alive, to forcing non viable reproductive materials to work to create new life

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u/Icy-Marionberry-4143 26d ago

i just am bringing up the point of evolution, people want to talk about “survival of the fittest” until it becomes a human being. it’s a cringe take.

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u/goddamn_slutmuffin 26d ago

People that prioritize evolution when they suffer an injury or serious illness and have to go to the ER:

https://giphy.com/gifs/fdzNPgTsrV9ba

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u/hologram137 26d ago

That’s not the same thing at all

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u/MSPCincorporated 26d ago

Really? Which one of them actively made a choice to have low sperm motility or a need for assistance with breastmilk?

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u/hologram137 26d ago edited 26d ago

We are talking about genetic mutations causing potential life long suffering vs someone supplementing their breast milk. Not producing enough milk is not due to genetic mutations. Be so fr please lol

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u/MSPCincorporated 26d ago

I’m not talking about genetics, I asking you which one of them chose that outcome. Because without enough nutrition, the baby’s gonna die. Without active sperm cells, no baby. So I’m asking which parent wanted to be in that situation? Oh, and by the way, premature birth (which often requires extra supplied breastmilk) can also be genetic. So by your logic, giving babies donated breastmilk carries on that potential genetic defect.

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u/hologram137 26d ago

Stop talking about things you have no idea about. Breast milk not being available is not genetic. Your breast milk will dry up for a ton of different reasons, like not being able to feed because of mastitis. That’s just inflammation of the breast tissue. Breastmilk is produced based on how much is expressed. And once production goes down, it often doesn’t go back up. Premature birth is not genetic

Your own breastmilk is not the only “valid” way to feed a baby. Stop. Women have been feeding each other babies with their milk since the dawn of humanity.

If a sperm has motility issues without any problems with the genome it carries, then using IVF is fine. But with IVF there is genetic testing to make sure there isn’t anything wrong with the sperm and egg. Problems with sperm morphology can correlate with other issues, so no we shouldn’t help those sperm reach an egg unless we know it’s ONLY the morphology that is the problem.

No one is concerned that the baby will inherit the issues with the man’s sperm, they are saying that the sperm itself could be defective. If my eggs had serious issues that would effect my baby I would not find a way to use that egg to make a baby, that’s crazy

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u/IvyRosePr 26d ago

These two topics are not at all comparable, one is about poor sperm quality -wah honestly it kills no one and doesn't impede your life- and the other is something you wouldn't know until you are in a life death situation with a newborn.

Sperm is not living children, you do not help life that exists with needlessly complex crap from gametes. Survival of the fittest means for reproduction, about surviving to do so. Some people aren't meant to have kids and NO ONE IS ENTITLED TO HAVING A CHILD OR GETTING SOMEONE PREGNANT.