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Birth Of One Healthy Child Essay

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Pregnancy for the human female is a period of time that is celebrated in most cultures. However, reaching the point where a pregnancy successfully results in the birth of one or more healthy children can be quite difficult. Wilcox et al. (1988) provided the conservative estimate that thirty-one percent of all pregnancies were unintentionally lost, with twenty-two percent of pregnancies being lost before they were clinically detected using delicate detection of hCG hormone levels. Since the rate of spontaneous to be abortion this high when healthcare is arguably the best it has ever been in all human history, it is worth examining the possibility that spontaneous abortion might carry an evolutionary advantage for humans that doesn’t make sense in a simply modern context. Before looking at the possible factors that lead to spontaneous abortion, it would be beneficial to examine the parameters that make an atypical pregnancy. It is most simple to define a regular human pregnancy as the birth of one healthy child per gestation. A common variation that occurs in human pregnancy is the gestation of multiple fetuses. In research by Robinson and Caines (1977), it was discovered that more twins are conceived than were born. This study found nearly half of its sample of thirty women, all of whom were diagnosed with a double pregnancy during the first trimester of their pregnancy, give birth to a single child. While the health risks a mother can incur when gestating twins seem

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