Prescript: I'm not sure if i should post this...
But here is it anyway... (the following is- like anything on this thing- just a thought, meaningless, insincere & fleeting)
It's funnie that having a baby is the exactly the same as having a parasitic infection.
The baby lives only because the mother is supplying it with the necessary nutrients in order for it to grow and develop.
The same is said for any parasite that infects the body- it lives because the host is supplying it, however inadvertently, with nutrients.
Parasites have developed all sorts of ways to defend itself from the sometimes hostile environments in the body. The same could be said for the fetus. It has a whole protected sac which separates it from the mother- so that the mother's immune system doesn't interfere with development and destroy it.
In the later stages of pregnancy, the mother puts herself in a state of starvation, so that the fetus has enough nutrients to spur it's incredible growth. (The "giving mother" is right..)
The fetus is allowed to live for 9 months before the mother can finally get rid of it.
9 months of eating for 2, metabolising for 2, giving the fetus the best of what is ingested*.
So, men, if you want to know what it feels like to be pregnant, ingest a parasite**, and let it sit there in your body for 9 months before getting rid of it.
* Glucose, the body's primary fuel, can cross the placenta to the baby. Ketones, the body's back up system in times of starvation cannot. Ketones are acidic, hence excessive use of ketones leads to a metabolic acidosis which causes hyperventilation. Acidosis also depresses the brain and, if severe enough, can lead to diabetic coma and death.
So the mother gets the ketones, and the fetus gets the glucose.
** Perhaps a tape worm? They can grow to all sorts of lengths.
I wonder if infectious disease specialists and obstetricians ever fight about this?
