Reproduction Vs Reproduction

The greatest miracle life possesses is alluded to be the ability to create new life. Life, however, is contingent upon near perfect conditions and women are the central facet in whether reproduction comes to fruition.

In order to create a new life the video and our textbook outline several conditions that must be met. Beginning with the small time table of a woman’s egg, merely hours. If the egg is not met by the teaspoon sized sperm army during this time the egg will “die.” Yet to allow this the sperm must meet with a hospitable environment which is entirely dependent upon the female body. Acidity of the vagina quickly kills sperm, particularly the imperfect sperm which can be “even in a healthy man, 60 percent of the sperm” (Nilsson, 2001). Those who persist must meet a cervix in receiving mode, rather than the usual locked down cervix. At this point those who have passed into the cervix still have make it into the fallopian tubes which is only possible, on the time table, when the uterus is contracting and expanding to push them.

The first arrivals may not even be greeted by an egg and rather their slower friends may luck out. The female body is providing these slower sperm with a coating that can enable them to survive to meet the egg. The female body even goes so far as to regulate the release of this slower group to ensure maximum fertility. Even if they do find the egg, the egg is surrounded by supportive cells that pick and chose the acceptable sperm. The final test, however, is in which sperm can break into the egg through the use of interlock able proteins.

After facing these odds, the now joined cells still only have a fifty-fifty chance of survival. The egg must lock out other sperm and begin meiosis. They must then r...

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...opment) in chapter four. Specifically, he addresses the causes of birth defects and other birth related problems. One of particular interest is that even though “the United States has become [a power house] economically and technologically, it still has more low birth weight infants than a number of other countries... such as New Zealand, Australia, France, and Japan are low birth weight where there is less than 5% low birth weight. In the United States, 7 percent of all infants are low birth weight” (Santrock, 2013, 122). Many factors could contribute to this; however, my belief is that these countries provide better food to their citizens, or food with higher nutritional values.

This practice would surely help to ease a mother’s bodily burden during this demanding period. So for all our advances are we really a country well equipped for the burdens of pregnancy.