How kids born
Getting pregnant: How to make a baby
Sure, you may know the basics about how babies are made – a sperm and egg meet, and nine months later, a beautiful baby is born. But there's actually a lot more to it than that. From the development of an egg to sperm production, ovulation, fertilization, and implantation, there are many steps. Here are some biological facts about making a baby.
How do women's eggs develop?
For women, a potential pregnancy begins in the ovaries, those two almond-shaped glands attached to either side of the uterus. (See illustration below.)
Ovaries come fully stocked: Newborn baby girls are born with about 2 million eggs that have developed in utero – that's more than a lifetime's supply. The eggs begin dying off almost immediately, and no more are ever produced.
At the time of her first period, a young woman has approximately a couple hundred thousand eggs. An accelerated decline begins at age 37 or 38, with about a thousand eggs left at menopause (usually between age 45 and 55).
During the middle of the menstrual cycle, most likely between days 6 and 14 for women with a 28-day cycle, follicle-stimulating hormone, produced by the pituitary gland, causes follicles in one of a woman's ovaries to begin to mature. At about day 14, an increase in luteinizing hormone, also made by the pituitary, causes the ovary to release its egg. The egg then travels through the fallopian tube to the uterus.
This release, called ovulation, starts the conception clock ticking. The egg lives only about 24 hours after ovulation, so it has to be fertilized soon for conception to happen. Your "fertile window" is the five days leading up to ovulation, as well as the day of ovulation and the day after. That's about seven days total.
So how do you make a baby, exactly? If your egg meets up with a healthy sperm on its way to the uterus, the two can join and begin the process of creating a new life.
If not, the egg ends its journey at the uterus, where it either dissolves or is absorbed by the body.
When pregnancy doesn't occur, the ovary eventually stops making estrogen and progesterone (hormones that help maintain a pregnancy), and the thickened lining of the uterus is shed during your period.
How is sperm produced?
A man's body is almost constantly at work producing millions of microscopic sperm, whose sole purpose is to penetrate an egg. While women are born with all of the eggs they'll ever need, men aren't born with ready-made sperm. They have to be produced on a regular basis, beginning at the onset of puberty when a man begins to produce millions of sperm cells each day.
The average sperm lives only a few weeks in a man's body, and up to 500 million are released with each ejaculation. That means new sperm are always in production, ready for making a baby.
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Sperm begin developing in the testicles, the two glands in the scrotal sac beneath the penis. (See illustration above.) The testicles hang outside a man's body because they're quite sensitive to temperature.
To produce healthy sperm, testicles have to stay about 1 to 2 degrees Celsius cooler than normal body temperature – that's around 95 degrees Fahrenheit. The sperm are stored in a part of the testicle called the epididymis before mixing with semen just prior to ejaculation.
Despite the millions of sperm produced and released with each ejaculation, only one can fertilize an egg – this is the case even for identical twins. (When two separate eggs are fertilized by two separate sperm in the same pregnancy, a mother has fraternal twins.)
The sex of the resulting embryo depends on which type of sperm burrows into the egg first. Sperm with a Y chromosome make a boy baby, and sperm with an X chromosome make a girl. Plenty of myths about how to choose a baby's sex have been circulating for centuries. Some are backed by a bit of scientific evidence, but a child's gender is pretty much randomly determined.
Will having an orgasm help you get pregnant?
Besides being pleasurable, that sensation known as an orgasm also has an important biological function.
In men, having an orgasm propels sperm-rich semen into the vagina and up against the cervix, helping them reach the fallopian tubes minutes later. This gives sperm a head start on their way to the egg, which could help you get pregnant fast.
Some researchers theorize a woman's orgasm could help with conception – that the wavelike contractions associated with the female orgasm pull sperm farther into the cervix. But there's no real evidence that having an orgasm will help you get pregnant.
Still, having an orgasm couldn't hurt – and just might help – your chances of getting pregnant.
Does lying on your back after sex help you get pregnant?
Many couples also wonder whether a particular sexual position is best to make a baby. You may have heard that certain positions are ideal because they allow for deeper penetration, but there is no evidence that sex position has any effect on pregnancy rates.
So, do whatever you like. The most important thing about sex is that you're both having a good time and you're doing it frequently enough to have live sperm in the woman's reproductive tract during ovulation.
That means you should aim to have sex every 1 to 2 days during the middle of your cycle.
At this point, you can't do much except cross your fingers and hope. You may have also heard that it helps if the woman stays on her back afterward with a pillow elevating her bottom so gravity can help the sperm get to the waiting egg, but there's no evidence this helps achieve pregnancy either.
What happens to the sperm and egg after you have sex?
After sex, a great deal of activity is taking place inside your body. Those millions of sperm have begun their quest to find the egg to make a baby, and it's not an easy journey.
The first obstacle is the acid level in your vagina, which can be deadly to sperm. Then there's your cervical mucus, which can be impenetrable, except on the days when you're most fertile. Then it miraculously thins enough for a few of the strongest sperm to get through.
But that's not all – the sperm that survive still have a long road ahead. They need to travel from the cervix through the uterus to the fallopian tubes.
If there isn't an egg in one of the fallopian tubes after ejaculation, the sperm can live in the woman's reproductive tract for up to five days. Only a few dozen sperm ever make it to the egg. The rest get trapped, head up the wrong fallopian tube, or die along the way.
It's important to know that regular cannabis use by your partner can contribute to lower sperm count as well as the ability of the sperm to travel.
For the lucky few who get near the egg, the race isn't over. They still have to penetrate the egg's outer shell and get inside before the others.
And as soon as the hardiest one of the bunch makes it through, the egg changes instantaneously so that no other sperm can get in. It's like a protective shield that clamps down over the egg at the exact moment that first sperm is safely inside.
Now the real miracle begins. The genetic material in the sperm combines with the genetic material in the egg to create a new cell that starts dividing rapidly. At the end of this period, the embryo becomes a mass of very organized cells called a blastocyst.
You're not actually pregnant until the blastocyst travels the rest of the way down the fallopian tube and attaches itself to the wall of your uterus. This is known as implantation and usually happens five to six days after fertilization.
That final leg of the trip can take another three days or so, but it may be a few more weeks until you miss a period and suspect that you're going to have a baby. If you miss your period or notice another sign of pregnancy, you can use a home pregnancy test to find out for sure if you have a little one on the way.
An analysis of out-of-wedlock births in the United States
Daniel E. Koshland, Sr. Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics - University of California, Berkeley
United States Secretary of the Treasury - United States Department of the Treasury
Former Distinguished Fellow in Residence - Economic Studies
Since 1970, out-of-wedlock birth rates have soared.
In 1965, 24 percent of black infants and 3.1 percent of white infants were born to single mothers. By 1990 the rates had risen to 64 percent for black infants, 18 percent for whites. Every year about one million more children are born into fatherless families. If we have learned any policy lesson well over the past 25 years, it is that for children living in single-parent homes, the odds of living in poverty are great. The policy implications of the increase in out-of-wedlock births are staggering.
Efforts by social scientists to explain the rise in out-of-wedlock births have so far been unconvincing, though several theories have a wide popular following. One argument that appeals to conservatives is that of Charles Murray, who attributes the increase to overly generous federal welfare benefits. But as David Ellwood and Lawrence Summers have shown, welfare benefits could not have played a major role in the rise of out-of-wedlock births because benefits rose sharply in the 1960s and then fell in the 1970s and 1980s, when out-of-wedlock births rose most.
A study by Robert Moffitt in 1992 also found that welfare benefits can account for only a small fraction of the rise in the out-of-wedlock birth ratio.
Liberals have tended to favor the explanation offered by William Julius Wilson. In a 1987 study, Wilson attributed the increase in out-of-wedlock births to a decline in the marriageability of black men due to a shortage of jobs for less educated men. But Robert D. Mare and Christopher Winship have estimated that at most 20 percent of the decline in marriage rates of blacks between 1960 and 1980 can be explained by decreasing employment. And Robert G. Wood has estimated that only 3-4 percent of the decline in black marriage rates can be explained by the shrinking of the pool of eligible black men.
Yet another popular explanation is that single parenthood has increased since the late 1960s because of the change in attitudes toward sexual behavior. But so far social scientists have been unable to provide a convincing explanation of exactly how that change came about or to estimate in any convincing way its quantitative impact.
In recent work we have been able to provide both.
In the late 1960s and very early 1970s (well before Roe v. Wade in January 1973) many major states, including New York and California, liberalized their abortion laws. At about the same time it became easier for unmarried people to obtain contraceptives. In July 1970 the Massachusetts law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried people was declared unconstitutional. We have found that this rather sudden increase in the availability of both abortion and contraception we call it a reproductive technology shock is deeply implicated in the increase in out-of-wedlock births. Although many observers expected liberalized abortion and contraception to lead to fewer out-of-wedlock births, in fact the opposite happened because of the erosion in the custom of “shotgun marriages.”
| Table 1. America’s reproductive technology shock | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1965-69 | 1970-74 | 1975-79 | 1980-84 | |
| Births (thousands) | ||||
| Total | 3,599 | 3,370 | 3,294 | 3,646 |
| White | 2,990 | 2,760 | 2,660 | 2,915 |
| Black | 542 | 583 | 540 | 590 |
| Birthrates per 1,000 married women, age 15-44 | ||||
| White | 119. 4 | 103.6 | 93.1 | 94.5 |
| Black | 129.1 | 110.3 | 93.3 | 90.6 |
| Birthrates per 1,000 unmarried women, age 15-44 | ||||
| White | 12.7 | 12.6 | 13.7 | 18.9 |
| Black | 91.0 | 94.6 | 85.5 | 81.7 |
| Women married, age 15-44 (percent) | ||||
| White | 67.8 | 65.3 | 61.6 | 58.8 |
| Black | 55.9 | 52.9 | 45.2 | 39.9 |
| Out-of-wedlock births (thousands) | ||||
| Total | 322 | 406 | 515 | 715 |
| White | 144 | 166 | 220 | 355 |
| Black | 189 | 230 | 280 | 337 |
| Women age 16 with sexual experience (percent) | ||||
| White | 13. 8 | 23.2 | 28.1 | 32.8 |
| Black | 35.0 | 42.3 | 50.8 | 49.9 |
| Unmarried women using the pill at first intercourse (percent) | ||||
| Total | 5.7 | 15.2 | 13.4 | NA |
| Abortions, unmarried women, age 15-44 (thousands) | ||||
| Total | 88 | 561 | 985 | 1,271 |
| First birth shotgun marriage rate (percent) | ||||
| White | 59.2 | 55.4 | 45.7 | 42.0 |
| Black | 24.8 | 19.5 | 11.0 | 11.4 |
| Adoptions (thousands) | ||||
| Total | 158 | 156 | 129 | 142 |
| Ratio of adoptions to births to mothers not married within three years of birth | ||||
| Total | 49. 0 | 38.4 | 29.0 | 19.8 |
| George A. Akerlof, Janet L. Yelln, and Michael L. Katz, “An Analysis of Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing in the United States,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1996 | ||||
Until the early 1970s, shotgun marriage was the norm in premarital sexual relations. The custom was succinctly stated by one San Francisco resident in the late 1960s: “If a girl gets pregnant you married her. There wasn’t no choice. So I married her.”
Since 1969, however, shotgun marriage has gradually disappeared (see table 1). For whites, in particular, the shotgun marriage rate began its decline at almost the same time as the reproductive technology shock. And the disappearance of shotgun marriages has contributed heavily to the rise in the out-of-wedlock birth rate for both white and black women. In fact, about 75 percent of the increase in the white out-of-wedlock first-birth rate, and about 60 percent of the black increase, between 1965 and 1990 is directly attributable to the decline in shotgun marriages.
If the shotgun marriage rate had remained steady from 1965 to 1990, white out-of-wedlock births would have risen only 25 percent as much as they have. Black out-of-wedlock births would have increased only 40 percent as much.
What links liberalized contraception and abortion with the declining shotgun marriage rate? Before 1970, the stigma of unwed motherhood was so great that few women were willing to bear children outside of marriage. The only circumstance that would cause women to engage in sexual activity was a promise of marriage in the event of pregnancy. Men were willing to make (and keep) that promise for they knew that in leaving one woman they would be unlikely to find another who would not make the same demand. Even women who would be willing to bear children out-of-wedlock could demand a promise of marriage in the event of pregnancy.
The increased availability of contraception and abortion made shotgun weddings a thing of the past. Women who were willing to get an abortion or who reliably used contraception no longer found it necessary to condition sexual relations on a promise of marriage in the event of pregnancy.
But women who wanted children, who did not want an abortion for moral or religious reasons, or who were unreliable in their use of contraception found themselves pressured to participate in premarital sexual relations without being able to exact a promise of marriage in case of pregnancy. These women feared, correctly, that if they refused sexual relations, they would risk losing their partners. Sexual activity without commitment was increasingly expected in premarital relationships.
If we have learned any policy lesson well over the past 25 years, it is that for children living in single-parent homes, the odds of living in poverty are great. The policy implications of the increase in out-of-wedlock births are staggering.
Advances in reproductive technology eroded the custom of shotgun marriage in another way. Before the sexual revolution, women had less freedom, but men were expected to assume responsibility for their welfare. Today women are more free to choose, but men have afforded themselves the comparable option.
“If she is not willing to have an abortion or use contraception,” the man can reason, “why should I sacrifice myself to get married?” By making the birth of the child the physical choice of the mother, the sexual revolution has made marriage and child support a social choice of the father.
Many men have changed their attitudes regarding the responsibility for unplanned pregnancies. As one contributor to the Internet wrote recently to the Dads’ Rights Newsgroup, “Since the decision to have the child is solely up to the mother, I don’t see how both parents have responsibility to that child.” That attitude, of course, makes it far less likely that the man will offer marriage as a solution to a couple’s pregnancy quandary, leaving the mother either to raise the child or to give it up for adoption.
Before the 1970s, unmarried mothers kept few of their babies. Today they put only a few up for adoption because the stigma of unwed motherhood has declined. The transformation in attitudes was captured by the New York Times in 1993: “In the old days’ of the 1960s, ’50s, and ’40s, pregnant teenagers were pariahs, banished from schools, ostracized by their peers or scurried out of town to give birth in secret.
” Today they are “supported and embraced in their decision to give birth, keep their babies, continue their education, and participate in school activities.” Since out-of-wedlock childbearing no longer results in social ostracism, literally and figuratively, shotgun marriage no longer occurs at the point of the shotgun.
The preceding discussion explains why the increased availability of abortion and contraception what we shall call the reproductive technology shock could have increased the out-of-wedlock birth rate. How well do the data fit the theory?
In 1970 there were about 400,000 out-of-wedlock births out of 3.7 million total births. In 1990 there were 1.2 million out-of-wedlock births out of 4 million total. From the late 1960s to the late 1980s, the number of births per unmarried woman roughly doubled for whites, but fell by 5-10 percent for blacks. The fraction of unmarried women rose about 30 percent for whites, about 40 percent for blacks.
The fertility rates for married women of both races declined rapidly (also, of course, contributing to the rise in the out-of-wedlock birth ratio).
If the increased abortions and use of contraceptives caused the rise in out-of-wedlock births, the increase would have to have been very large relative to the number of those births and to the number of unmarried women. And as table 1 shows, that was indeed the case. The use of birth control pills at first intercourse by unmarried women jumped from 6 percent to 15 percent in just a few years, a change that suggests that a much larger fraction of all sexually active unmarried women began using the pill. The number of abortions to unmarried women grew from roughly 100,000 a year in the late 1960s (compared with some 322,000 out-of-wedlock births) to more than 1.2 million (compared with 715,000 out-of-wedlock births) in the early 1980s. Thus the data do support the theory.
Indeed, the technology shock theory explains not only the increase in the out-of-wedlock birth rate, but also related changes in family structure and sexual practice, such as the sharp decline in the number of children put up for adoption.
The peak year for adoptions in the United States was 1970, the year of the technology shock. In the five years following the shock the number of agency adoptions was halved from 86,000 to 43,000. In 1969, mothers of out-of-wedlock children who had not married after three years kept only 28 percent of those children. In 1984, that rate was 56 percent; by the late 1980s it was 66 percent.
Unlike the other statistics we have mentioned, the shotgun marriage rate itself underwent only gradual change following the early 1970s. Why did it not change as dramatically as the others? For two reasons. The first is that shotgun marriage was an accepted social convention and, as such, it changed slowly. It took time for men to recognize that they did not have to promise marriage in the event of a pregnancy in exchange for sexual relations. It may also have taken time for women to perceive the increased willingness of men to leave them if they demanded marriage. As new expectations formed, social norms readjusted, and the shotgun marriage rate began its long decline.
In addition, the decreasing stigma of out-of-wedlock childbirth reinforced the technology-driven causes for the decline in shotgun marriage and increased retention of out-of-wedlock children. With premarital sex the rule, rather than the exception, an out-of-wedlock childbirth gradually ceased to be a sign that society’s sexual taboos had been violated. The reduction in stigma also helps explain why women who would once have put their baby up for adoption chose to keep it instead.
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One final puzzle requires explanation. The black shotgun marriage ratio began to fall earlier than the white ratio and shows no significant change in trend around 1970. How do we account for that apparent anomaly? Here federal welfare benefits may play a role. For women whose earnings are so low that they are potentially eligible for welfare, an increase in welfare benefits has the same effect on out-of-wedlock births as a decline in the stigma to bearing a child out-of-wedlock.
The difference in welfare eligibility between whites and blacks and the patterns of change in benefits rising in the 1960s and falling thereafter may then explain why the decline in the black shotgun marriage ratio began earlier than that for whites. Because blacks on average have lower incomes than whites, they are more affected by changes in welfare benefits. As a result, the rise in welfare benefits in the 1960s may have had only a small impact on the white shotgun rate but resulted in a significant decrease in the black shotgun marriage rate.
Although doubt will always remain about the ultimate cause for something as diffuse as a change in social custom, the technology shock theory does fit the facts. The new reproductive technology was adopted quickly and on a massive scale. It is therefore plausible that it could have accounted for a comparably large change in marital and fertility patterns. The timing of the changes also seems, at least crudely, to fit the theory.
Attempts to turn the technological clock backwards by denying women access to abortion and contraception are probably not possible. Even if such attempts were possible, they would now be counterproductive. In addition to reducing the well-being of women who use the technology, such measures would lead to yet greater poverty. With sexual abstinence rare and the stigma of out-of-wedlock motherhood small, denying women access to abortion and contraception would only increase the number of children born out-of-wedlock and reared in impoverished single-parent families. Most children born out-of-wedlock are reported by their mothers to have been “wanted” but “not at that time.” Some are reported as not wanted at all. Easier access to birth control information and devices, before sexual participation, and easier access to abortion, in the event of pregnancy, could reduce both the number of unwanted children and improve the timing of those whose mothers would have preferred to wait. Because of mothers’ ambivalence toward out-of-wedlock pregnancies, greater availability of these options has considerable promise for reducing the number of out-of-wedlock births.
Most important, our analysis of the changes in out-of-wedlock birth suggests that a return to the old system of shotgun marriage will not be brought about by significant reductions in welfare benefits, and possibly not even by very large reductions. With sexual activity taking place early in relationships and with little social stigma enforcing the norm of shotgun marriage, fathers no longer have strong extrinsic reasons for marriage. Cuts in welfare therefore have little effect on the number of out-of-wedlock births, while reducing dollar-for-dollar the income of the poorest segment of the population. The initial goal of the welfare program was to see that the children in unfortunate families were adequately supported. The support of poor children not the alteration of the behavior of potential mothers should remain the major policy goal of welfare in the United States. This level of support must be tempered by equity between those who collect welfare and do not work and those who do work and also are paying taxes that, at least in part, go to pay for the less fortunate.
In this regard a generous Earned Income Tax Credit serves two roles. Not only does it reward those who work, but by increasing the differential between the working poor and the nonworking poor, it allows greater benefits equitably to be paid to nonworking mothers.
This children-oriented approach to welfare should also inform the requirements of welfare. It only makes sense to cut mothers off welfare after two years, for example, if jobs and child care are available so that mothers can support their families and their children can receive adequate child care. It should be remembered that the proper care and nourishment of children should be the first goal of our society.
It has been suggested that measures should be taken to make fathers pay for the support of their out-of-wedlock children. While probably difficult to enforce, such measures give the correct incentives. They will make men pause before fathering such children and they will at least slightly change the terms between fathers and mothers.
Such measures deserve serious consideration.
Where do babies come from? | RBC Life
. When to Start a Conversation, What to Say, and What Books to UseUpdated October 11, 2022, 10:49 AM
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Sex education should start from childhood. It is important for parents to convey information correctly in order to form a healthy attitude towards sex in a child, warn against mistakes and establish trusting relationships in the family.
RBC Life, together with psychologists, figured out how to talk to children about sexuality and childbirth.
Where do babies come from? When it's time to tell
When a child shows interest in letters, parents explain the alphabet to him and teach him to read, and do not take away books. The same should be with sexual education, experts say. If a child is interested in a topic, it is important to immediately give him comprehensive information and form an adequate understanding of his gender, sexuality, relationships between people.
Children who receive good sex education from adults become more confident, take better care of their health, start having sex later and are less at risk of sexualized violence. [1] [2]
It is necessary to answer the child's questions on the topic of sex, regardless of age, if:
- the child himself asks questions about conception, pregnancy and birth;
- younger children appeared in the family and close circle;
- children witnessed the sex of their parents;
- children saw frank information on the Internet, books; 90,021 children were victims of sexual abuse (in this case, consultation with a psychologist is required).
The age at which it is appropriate to talk about sex depends on the nature of the child. Some children actively explore their body and sensations, others show no interest. The average age for a conversation is six years and a little later. Further 9-10 years, it is better not to postpone the conversation .
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How exactly to talk
General rules to talk about where babies come from:
- Initiate the dialogue yourself .
- Use examples to talk about sexual relations : real life situations (for example, a child met a pregnant woman on the street), films, books, advertisements (a child saw a scene of a passionate kiss).
- Do not rush to go into details , focus on the child's age and interest in the topic. The younger the child, the less information he needs.
- Tell the truth . It is important for parents to forget about euphemisms and "childish" names of the genitals, not to tell fairy tales about storks and cabbage. It is necessary to simply, but in detail, without concealment and mitigation, explain to the child the bodily processes. In addition, the truth is respect for the child and the basis for a trusting relationship with him.
- Don't forget your feelings .
Talk about them and help your child figure out how he or she may feel, how you feel in relationships with the opposite sex.
Any question about sex education should be answered instantly. It should not contain fictions and fables, appeals to religion, mythology, esotericism, philosophy. Only specific knowledge of anatomy. See burning eyes and hear endless questions - tell us more, get additional books and initiate such conversations yourself. If the child is bored, then it’s not time yet, give the minimum information.
Lidia Parkhitko Psychologist, specialist in parent-child relations, author of the book "How to talk to children about sex"
What happens to children at different ages
3-5 years
At this age, the child begins to be interested in how and what works in his body. When explaining any physiological processes to a parent, it is important to use the correct anatomical terms and not divide organs into “good” and “bad”, decent and indecent.
There is nothing wrong with our body, but there are parts of the body and processes that are considered intimate. At this age, it is not necessary to introduce the child to sex and tell the details. The task of parents is to form a healthy and careful attitude towards the body and the natural processes associated with the genitals.
When asked "Where do babies come from?" it will be enough for a child of 3-4 years old to say: “Mom has a special organ in her stomach - the uterus. In it, the baby develops and grows. It is then born through the vagina." If additional questions follow, just as simply, without unnecessary details, answer them.
Lyubov KlimovaSpecialist in sex education, author of the book Everything You Wanted to Know About Adolescence
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6-10 years old
Ages 6 to 10 are best for learning about sexuality. Information about conception, pregnancy and childbirth will be well absorbed by the child, so it is important for parents to give the right answers to questions before the Internet or friends do.
All children up to 8–9 years old should know exactly how their body will mature : girls about menstruation, boys about erections and wet dreams. Also, the child needs to be told about the anatomy and physiology of the reproductive system: eggs in women and sperm in men. It is worth explaining that when the sex cells in the uterus are connected, the future baby begins to grow in a woman.
How did sex cells meet? During intimacy between a man and a woman. It's called "sex." Sex is engaged only in adults by mutual agreement for pleasure and the birth of children. Adults hug, kiss and undress. In this case, the man's penis increases in size (an erection occurs) and penetrates into the woman's vagina. Spermatozoa are released from the penis, if they meet with an egg, then pregnancy occurs.
It is important to touch upon the topic of pornography, because children see their first films for adults on average at the age of 7-10, added Lyubov Klimova.
Let your child know that these are fictional stories and characters that should not be used to study sexual relationships.
Lyubov KlimovaSpecialist in sex education, author of the book Everything You Wanted to Know About Adolescence
You already know how the genitals are arranged, where children come from and what sex is - we read and talked a lot about it. Now you actively use the Internet, communicate with friends and have already seen or will soon see explicit scenes. It can be pictures, videos just with naked people or with those who have sex. It can evoke strong emotions, but there is a lot of untruth in there. I'll tell you more when you want. Just let me know. And if you see before we talk, don't worry: watching some video can't make you worse. Just come and discuss all the issues that have arisen.
Lidia Parkhitko Psychologist, specialist in parent-child relations, author of the book "How to talk to children about sex"
11-16 years old
Adolescents need detailed information on all topics of puberty: anatomy, hygiene, pregnancy and childbirth, contraception, sexually transmitted diseases.
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A trusting relationship with parents is crucial in a conversation with a teenager . If a child denies their opinion and correctness, you should pay attention to books for teenagers and educational films.
At the same time, it is important not to prohibit or condemn sex - this can be repulsive. It is much more productive to give access to verified and complete information, to form sexual literacy.
Books about where babies come from
When choosing literature or films, you need to focus on the age and level of interest of the child. Be sure to read and watch the material yourself in order to understand what information the author is broadcasting. Recommended reading from sex educators:
- "Intimate educational program with and without parents" , Yulia Yarmolenko. Illustrated book about basic issues related to puberty, safety and sex. Suitable for children from 6 years old.
- You Have Manhood , Nick Fisher.
The book tells about the male reproductive system, diseases, hygiene, sex. The age limit is 16+, but, according to psychologist Klimova, the book is suitable for boys aged 10-16. - Birth , Helen Drewer. An interactive illustrated atlas that clearly tells about the birth of a person. It will be useful for children from 6 to 16 years old.
- "How to talk to children about sex" , Lydia Parkhitko. A book for adults about the competent sexual education of children.
- « About IT. From the first changes to the first wishes" , Zep and Helen Brüller. The book tells about both physiological and psychological processes: the differences between love and falling in love, consent, self-respect, self-love. For teenagers aged 14-18.
- "All you wanted to know about adolescence" , Lyubov Klimova. A coming of age book for girls aged 10-16. The publication is based on medical facts and adapted for easy perception.
- My body is changing , Jerry Bailey. The book is about age-related changes, the first sexual experience, relationships with peers. For teenagers aged 14-18.
- How Boys Grow Up (Phil Wilkinson) and How Girls Grow Up (Anita Nike). Puberty Guides for Boys 10-13 and Girls 9-12 years old.
- « Body, emotions, relationships, you. A Beautiful Book on Growing Up for Girls and Body, Emotions, Relationships, You. A beautiful book about growing up for boys” , Barbara Petrushchak. Books that will help you understand and accept the changes that occur in adolescence, love yourself and your body.
- 33 Important Whys , Victoria Shimanskaya, Alexandra Chkanikova. A book for teenagers about how to build your life, relationships with family and friends. The publication contains exercises from a doctor of psychology and a child sociologist.
"I got disgusted with my parents"
"At about 12-13 years old, I learned from a friend about conception.
For me it seemed something very terrible, I could not imagine that my parents were also doing this. I could not imagine that I would have to with someone to do this, because I really wanted to have children ... "" When I finally realized this, about 15 years old, I had a real shock. I had an aversion to my parents. I tried to overcome these feelings in myself. I told myself that all normal people do it, but nevertheless it was so nasty in my soul ... "
These are excerpts from interviews with girls from the small industrial city of Shadrinsk, Kurgan Region, collected by culture expert Sergei Borisov. At his request, students of local universities created a total of about ten thousand handwritten pages of memories of their childhood and adolescence.
Until the age of six or seven, Shadrin's girls are convinced that they were brought by a stork, bought in a store, found in a garden or in a forest. From the age of seven, they already know for sure that children appear from the belly of a woman, but how they get there is very bizarre.
Explanations are predominantly magical ("a fairy with a wand" - however, she does not appear at first request, but only to married women so that the child later has a father) and quasi-medical (the child is first stuffed on the operating table into the mother's stomach so that it grows a little there, and then take it out again). There is another version of the initial presence of a tiny child in the stomach of any girl - it grows with her, and then, when the time comes, the mother begins to eat special food (or pills), the stomach grows rapidly, and from there they take out a child ready for life. Special food and pills are present in many teen stories on this topic. At the age of five, one of the respondents was convinced that she personally descended from a monkey, like everyone around: “In order for mom and dad to have a child, they donate their blood in the hospital, they mix it with the blood of a monkey and give the monkey to drink blood, and it turns out child".
As the author of the study emphasizes, despite the sexual education of recent decades, modern children's ideas are deeply archaic.
They contain motifs recorded in the myths and rituals of different peoples of the world.
The plot of conception from something eaten, popular among children, is known in Russian fairy tales and in the myths of the Papuan Kiwais, in Kurdish, Indian, Khanty, ancient Chinese, Arabic and Pamir folklore. Often in ancient ideas, the important role in the conception of certain fluids is emphasized: water, saliva, blood. In one of the Indian tales, a deer licks the raja's saliva: "... And the deer suffered from the raja's spit, and in due time a human child was born to her." In Scandinavian mythology, important people, aces and vans, collect their saliva in a special vessel, and a creature is born there that has absorbed all the wisdom of their ancestors.
Water in the views of many peoples is associated with the birth of a child and the appearance of his soul. According to the beliefs of the Western Slavs, the souls of unborn children live in water bodies. Among Ukrainians, one of the mythological formulas for the origin of children sounds like this: "Caught in the water" or "Water brought it.
" Among the Russians, the concept of the fertilizing power of water was reflected in the ritual of wallowing in the dew of barren women seeking to become pregnant. In the myth of the Trobriands, the mother of the legendary hero Tudava lived alone in a grotto on the seashore. Once she slept under a dripping stalactite. Drops of water pierced her vagina and took her virginity.
Very common are the ideas about menstrual blood as the basis of life, which is dominant among the majority of Indo-European peoples, including the Slavs. In the villages of the Smolensk province, for example, for the treatment of infertility, they put a shirt with monthly secretions on a hot stove - "as this blood is baked on the stove, so that the children are baked in my womb." And vice versa: in the Kaluga region, in order to make a woman childless, a sorceress steals her underwear with traces of menstruation, soaks the blood and pours it with spells on a hot stove. The Maori view menstrual blood as a kind of failed human being: if the blood hadn't flowed out, it could have turned into a human.
9 In the ancient cultures of the East, it is believed that the sex of the unborn child can be influenced if the expectant mother adheres to a certain diet for several months before conception.
This does not mean that in primitive tribes there is no concept of a father. In the most ancient societies, built on the principle of exogamy, that is, the division of the clan into two groups, between which marriage is allowed and within which it is prohibited, all men of their group are considered fathers.
In a biological sense, neither of them can be a father, since communication within the group is punishable by death.
With the emergence of property and inheritance relations, the criterion of paternity becomes the possession of a woman. In some Papuan tribes, men obtain wives for themselves by buying them from neighboring tribes or by force, after which the woman is considered the property of the man, like any other thing. After the death of the husband, the wife passes into the possession of his eldest son, like all her children. Thus, the eldest son is considered the father of all his younger brothers. However, sexual intercourse between a widow and her son is forbidden, and as a "sleeping woman" she passes to the younger brothers of her late husband.
In the Nuer tribe, the social structure is based on formal marriages arranged through the transfer of livestock. Husbands and wives can separate, the wife can live separately and choose her lovers. However, all children born to her after the conclusion of the marriage are considered to belong to the family of her husband, who, at the conclusion of the marriage, gave cattle for her as a wedding ransom.
Nayar girls from the southern regions of India, upon reaching puberty, enter into a fictitious marriage with a man of the corresponding caste, who ritually becomes the father of all her future children. After that, they live independently and enjoy complete sexual freedom.
Archaic ideas do not always underestimate the role of the father in the appearance of children. Sometimes, on the contrary, it is exaggerated. For example, among the Arapesh tribe, according to the testimony of the ethnographer who described them, the role of the father was not limited only to the act of conception: "The Arapesh have no idea that after conception ... the husband can leave and, returning nine months later, find out that his his wife bore him a child. Such fatherhood they would consider impossible and, moreover, repulsive. A child for them is not the product of a momentary passion, but something carefully created by father and mother over a certain period of time. " The sexual activity of the arapesh is seen as purposeful work, the task of which is to create a child, feed him, give him shape during the first weeks when he is in the mother's womb.
According to the Gimi people of New Guinea, work on the creation of a child should continue until his birth. In particular, intimacy with a woman in the last days of pregnancy is needed to close the fontanel.
Remnants of such representations have been preserved among the Russians, albeit in a satirical form. For example, in the fairy tale "The Priest and the Man" from the well-known collection of cherished fairy tales by A. N. Afanasiev, it is told how the husband leaves to work, leaving his pregnant wife. A priest comes to the woman and informs that her husband left without finishing the child. The woman asks the priest to help her, he willingly agrees. She happily tells her returning husband how the priest helped her in finishing the child.
90Conception from saliva 
If a woman wants a boy, she must eat salty food. If the girl is sweet.
Tibetan medicine associated the sex of the unborn child with the moment of conception: at conception on the first, third, fifth, seventh day after the end of menstruation, a boy is born; in the second, fourth, sixth and eighth - a girl.
As magical means to promote the birth of a boy, Tibetan doctors recommended wearing a cord on the belt, woven by an innocent youth from wool taken from the right shoulder blades of an odd number of rams. An image of a boy must be hung on a cord, wrapped in a piece of mutton skin. There is also an easier way to influence the sex of the unborn child: the mother should always have portraits of beautiful children, boys or girls, depending on who she wants, a son or a daughter.
According to Pliny the Elder, the ancient Greeks, and later the Romans, believed that a pregnant woman could be sure that she would have a boy if she ate hare testicles or a uterus or drank thistle juice.
Aristotle predicted the sex of the unborn child differently: he said that powerful women always have girls.
Among the Slavic peoples, it was believed that in order to give birth to a boy, a man should go to bed on the right hand of his wife and begin sexual intercourse from the right side. In turn, a woman after sexual intercourse should lie down for a while on her right side. In the 19th century, in the Oryol province, such a belief was described: if you put a hat on your husband’s head during copulation, there will be a boy; if you tie it with a woman's scarf, - a girl. In the Kama region, if they wanted a girl, a woman would put a spinning wheel cut from splinters under her pillow for the duration of sexual intercourse, if a boy, an ax.
Eastern tradition, in addition, attaches great importance to the psychological state of a married couple. According to anthropologist Alvin Verier, who spent many years in the Indian Muriya tribe, it is believed that a woman can become pregnant only when she commits herself to a partner in her thoughts.
If a woman does not want to become pregnant, her soul will suppress and reject the sperm, and conception will not take place.
In an ancient Chinese text, the preparations for conception are described as follows: "First, one must purify one's heart and cast off all worldly sorrows by meditating and concentrating one's mind through fasting. Then, on the third day after a woman's in the morning, the man must arouse her passion. Then he must connect with her, making sure that his innermost feelings coincide with hers, and carefully mix his own pleasure with that of his partner.
Found in cabbage 
To this day, Russians, Bashkirs and some other nations have retained a ban on coming up with a name for a child before birth and buying children's things.
In Rus', a pregnant woman, as a rule, hid the fact of her pregnancy even from her husband. It was believed that the child develops best when no one except the mother knows about it. All relatives and neighbors always played along with her in this and did not ask direct questions about her pregnancy and due date. It was believed that only those who wished to spoil the pregnant and unborn baby could be openly interested in this. Only the husband, her mother and mother-in-law could ask a woman about the fact of pregnancy and the term of delivery, and then only when they were practically sure that the pregnancy had taken place.
As soon as the family began to guess, all the wishes of the pregnant woman were fulfilled unquestioningly. To refuse her request, especially if her requests were for food, was considered a sin, because this "requires the soul of an infant.
" According to folk beliefs, if a pregnant woman asked for something and was refused, this could bring the wrath of the ancestors to the offender's house: the mice would gnaw through all the clothes.
The last belief is a manifestation not so much of concern for the well-being of the mother and child, but of the idea of the danger of contact with pregnant women and the fear of an unborn baby that exists among many peoples. In ancient Indo-European cultures, the mouse personifies a number of related concepts - the soul of an ancestor, the soul of an unborn baby, the other world. The unborn child is connected with the other world, the world of ancestors, from where his soul comes, and therefore he is perceived both as subject to various dangers and as a source of danger.Born from the foam of the sea 
Pregnant women of the Lele tribe try not to approach the sick, since the proximity of the child in their stomach can cause an increase in cough or fever. Among the Nyakosa people, it is believed that the amount of grain that a pregnant woman approaches decreases because the embryo is very voracious and steals it. A child in the stomach is akin to a sorcerer, he strives to spoil food: beer turns sour, iron is poorly forged by a blacksmith, milk coagulates, nothing grows. The father of the child during the pregnancy of his wife is in danger in the war or on the hunt.
Such fear differs little from the fear of the dead, cemeteries, and everything connected with death, which is characteristic of modern man. Non-existence frightens us in exactly the same way as "primitive people", but unlike us, they experience the horror not only of post-mortem non-existence, but also of the previous birth. An example of such horror experienced by modern man is found at the beginning of Nabokov's autobiography, Other Shores, which tells of a young man who experienced "almost a panic while watching a home-made film shot a few weeks before his birth.
Especially terrible was the sight of a brand-new nursery carriage, standing on the porch with the self-satisfied insolence of a coffin.
brought stork
Lévi-Strauss's famous work, The Sorcerer and His Magic, describes a Kuna shamanistic song that is sung to ease difficult childbirth. The song tells how a shaman, at the head of a detachment of guardian spirits, goes to the house of Muu, a deity who has captured and by force holds the soul of a woman in labor.
The path of the shaman runs through the birth canal and the uterus of the woman in labor, inside which there is a battle with Muu and the release of the captive soul. Once the soul is liberated, the mother is safely delivered from childbirth.
In the maternity rites of many peoples, water is widely used. A woman in labor is given water or washed with water, and always running; water is poured on the bench, door handle and other objects. In ancient mythology, water is a dual symbol. Flowing water (rain, river, stream) has a cleansing and fertilizing power. Still water is the element of death. The intrauterine child developing in the amniotic fluid is an otherworldly being from the world of the dead. Accordingly, the outpouring of fetal waters along with the child being born is an initiation into earthly life.
In connection with this archaic water symbolism, the practice of childbirth in water, popular in some Western countries, and especially in Russia, is of particular interest.
The ideology of this movement is to return the newborn to conditions close to intrauterine, and mitigate the birth stress. In support of the correctness of this practice, evidence from ethnography is cited, in particular the fact that in ancient Egypt priests were born in this way.
In Egypt, indeed, the birth of the future priest took place in a special way. A woman who was in labor pains was lowered into a dungeon, lit only by the light of torches. There she waited for attempts to plunge into a small pool, in which the birth of the future priest took place. Mother and child remained in the dungeon for another 40 days, and only after that they gradually, with precautions and various rituals, came out into the light. The purpose of the rite was to preserve the status of an otherworldly being in a newborn baby, associated with the world of the dead, and thanks to this, possessing supernatural abilities. Then the newborn was brought up in a special way, which made it possible to preserve and develop these abilities in him.
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