Perhaps these can be viewed as just notes from an old notebook, not correctly formatted for itals, etc. for there is no time to do all. I simply got the gist from what i understood, in fact leaving out lots. i understand this was started in the singles forum but hope that's alright...prenatal care and maternity care are free in sweden (and more countries now i believe) where they have training in natural childbirth, where h.s. girls also receive instruction on these.
18 Theology
It is said that etsev in Gen.3.16, 17 refers primarily to emotions.
Etsev is also translated as ‘toil’ in Prov. 5.10, 10.22, Is. 58.3.
To be consistent, it should also be translated as ‘toil’ in 1 Chron. 4.9.
There is a verse in the NT where the AV adds ‘pain’, although it does not appear in the Greek-- Rom. 8.22 where the Gk simply says:
The whole creation groans in labor together (sunadino) until now.
It is worthy to note that ‘as a woman giving birth,’ wc appears 15x in our English translations of the OT, appears only 9x in the Septuagint. This simile occurs only once in the OT outside the prophetical literature, in Ps. 48.6, where it tells the king’s ‘laboring (chul) as a woman giving birth (yalad).’ This is a comparison of the effort in rowing to the effort in giving birth… the picture is like that of Mk. 6.48 (Phillips) where the disciples are ‘straining at the oars.’
In Isa. 42.14, rather than having the Lord say, ‘… now will I cry (paah) like a travailing (yalad) woman,’ as the AV reads, the Septuagint authors render this verse as ‘I have been as patient (kartereo) as a woman giving birth (tikto).
Translators have inserted concepts of suffering in other passages of comfort and blessing that refer to childbirth, as in Is. 54.1-4, 66.7-9, Jer. 31.8, etc.
To understand how English renderings can differ so much from the Septuagint, one must realize that our English and European translators of the OT are based primarily on the Heb.masoretic text wc earliest extant ms dates back only to AD 895…the importance of the Septuagint, with its happier renderings of childbirth passages, can hardly be overestimated. It was the only OT widely used by the early Church throughout the Gr.speaking world til the Latin vulgate appeared in the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] and 5[SUP]th[/SUP] century AD.
…the really surprising thing is that it is the translators of the newer revisions of the last half century who have been the chief offenders…in their attempt to break away from the awkward literary training and use of familiar english words they have unwittingly ‘read into’ the text the concept of childbirth pain in many places where it is not in the original languages…
As a matter of fact, many of us are guilty of carelessly ‘reading into’ the text our own concepts of childbirth pain [and many other things].
19 Contemporary Obstetric Practices
Because the concept of pain as a normal accompaniment of labor and birth is so deeply embedded in the minds of many doctors, they have dismissed as ‘irrational’ statements and evidences from women who have experienced happy childbirths.
It is a common misconception that the natural childbirth patient is a ‘stoic,’ while the orthodox obstetric patient is relieved of her pain by means of drugs. The opposite is true. The natural childbirth patient because she knows how to prevent pain from occurring by relaxation and proper breathing, does not suffer while the untrained orthodox patient bec.she is tense does not feel severe pain even under sedation…Drugs cause one to lose self-control, so what 1 does remember often assumes an embarrassing nightmarish quality.
… an intensely disliked experience is the irritated soreness of perineal tissue after childbirth due to an episiotomy and repair. The orthodox physician performs the episiotomy nearly 100% of the time…and there is evidence that it is not really necessary.
But while the enema and episiotomy, used routinely (in the US) for a woman in childbirth are troublesome there is a really cruel procedure in obstetrics. This is the practice of strapping a woman down totally flat on her back.. this has no justification whatever for a conscious, cooperative woman.
This obstetric custom of strapping a laboring woman in an inflexible position is inexcusable…this position makes labor difficult and exhausting, esp for th primipara. Many have not realized that the severe backache and fatigue that trouble them after childbirth was due to their having abused their back muscles by arching their backs while pushing—the only way u can push when ur pinned flat on ur back…
The use of this dorsal position for delivering a child was first popularized in the 17[SUP]th[/SUP] century by Mauriceau, a French physician. He found that placing the woman in this position made the birth so much easier for the doctor!
Hope these be a blessing to mothers to be, and others.
