The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times - Jennifer Worth

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I have a theory that all human babies are born prematurely. Given the human life span - three score years and ten - to be comparable with other animals of similar longevity, human gestation should be about two years. But the human head is so big by the age of two that no woman could deliver it. So our babies are born prematurely, in a state of utter helplessness.

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promethes 3 months, 1 week ago
AcTUaLly our ~natural~ lifespan has always been around "three score and ten". People have been living to 60-70 for hundreds of years at least. What has increased in recent times is the life expectancy due to earlier poor survival rates among children. But life expectancy is a statistical phenomenon, whereas lifespan is biological and relatively the same now as it was before tech and hygiene.
user975182 3 months, 3 weeks ago
The human longevity is not 70 years; thousands of years ago, before technology or hygiene, the natural lifespan was around 25-30 years.
slowtyper237 1 year, 3 months ago
Cool beans
bvw 3 years, 5 months ago
Great woman, great realist of a historian of Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Incredibly heart reading stories of the East End. Call the Midwife and such.

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