Talk:Pregnancy (mammals)

A complete hysterectomy? What about tubal ligation? zadcat 21:02 Sep 10, 2002 (UTC)

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"women who decide to adopt abstinence as their preferred method of birth control have been known to become pregnant." -- how? Am I missing something here? -- Tarquin 23:18 Sep 10, 2002 (UTC)

In the same way that those who adopt condoms as their method of birth control sometimes screw up (as it were), those who adopt abstinence also occasionally go awry. Thus, while the IDEAL failure rate (that is, the rate if practiced perfectly) of abstinence is 0%, the ACTUAL failure rate is not. Someone else 23:31 Sep 10, 2002 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I was wondering if it referred to virgin births, or (in the words of Victoria Wood) swimming breaststroke in the same lane as a boy doing butterfly... ;-) How does one "fail" at abstinence? Surely if a couple have sex when meaning to abstain, they've not "failed", they've ceased to abstain. -- Tarquin

One fails at abstinence by... well, you clearly know <G>. The pregnant couple may have failed in their determination to abstain, or have ceased to abstain, as you will, but either way their committment to abstention has failed to protect them from pregnancy. Someone else 23:42 Sep 10, 2002 (UTC)

That's just a truism which provides no useful information. News flash! Failing to utilize a protective method does not provide protection! --Brion

I'll give it a mild rewrite tomorrow. It's perfectly true that abstaining couples slip and yield to temptation (hmmm... temptation...), but the logic of the current wording strikes me as odd. -- Tarquin

• Would something like this work? "Abstinence is largely a fail-safe method of protection. However, some who habitually rely on it as their primary protection may cease to abstain and thereby incur the risk of pregnancy." -- April

That sounds good to me. Or "Abstinence, if perfectly adhered to, would be a fail-safe method of protection. However, some who habitually rely on it as their primary protection may cease to abstain and thereby incur the risk of pregnancy." Someone else 00:10 Sep 11, 2002 (UTC)

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Just for your information, I have moved all the talk about contraception to another article. I wanted to write more about pregnancy and foetal development in detail. I have a few questions that I wonder if the experts could correct me on if I am wrong.

• Im slightly confused on ectopic pregnancies, I know they occur of the baby is positioned abnormally. Does this include the further growth of the feotus in the fallopian tube?

Jedi Dan 15:08 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)

Great! but I've put back the bit about mammals - we could make a page human pregnancy for the specific stuff -- Tarquin 20:35 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)

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too much of this article sounds like embryology rather than pregnancy. arghh.... Alex.tan 17:06, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

This article appears to be destined to be the battleground of yet anothe edit war. For now, all remains quiet on the western front. -BuddhaInside

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Fairly extensive rewrite. "Post-implantation" needs work from someone who understands the details better than I do. Please fact-check the part about the red blood cells. Changed some stuff to present tense; other stuff may need to be present tense too, but I'm not sure. Audoderm?? Some sections still unwritten. Moved "Pregnancy in SF" into its own article, it's pretty off-topic.

- 12.233.149.168 02:43, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

After Googling for "audoderm" and finding only 7 links of which 5 were copies of this wiki page, I decided to change it to "endoderm" until I hit my embryology textbooks again (if I can still find them). Btw, it's interesting to note how many times this article has been copied, often without credit due. Alex.tan 08:25, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

"mammalian female" - some non-mammals bear live young too - some snakes, for example. Is it not called pregancy for them? Tualha 06:05, Nov 12, 2003 (UTC)

Why "mammalian female", because it was not known for a long time that some snakes bear their young living. It was considered that only female mammals became pregnant, by having developing child in their body, growing it. They knew some snakes kept their eggs inside their body, untill they were ready to hatch. However recent studies have shown that some snakes are actually fully livebearing, "nourishing their young with a placenta as well as a yolk sac" according to snakes. Magraggae 17:38, Aug 05, 2004 (GMT+1)