Why are babies usually head down in the womb, but when adults are upside down it’s extremely uncomfortable and/or dangerous
In: Biology
Babies aren’t upside down. They rotate in the weeks before birth. I imagine it’s tolerable and better than a breech birth which can mean death. As for children and adults being upside down isn’t normal and we haven’t evolved to live that way.
Think about it like being upside down in a pool x on land. You’d feel way more comfortable doing that under water. For starters, your arms wouldn’t have to strain themselves to support your weight, your neck wouldn’t be tense either, etc. A lot of things has less impact on us underwater, and that’s how babies are 24/7. Another thing that makes it uncomfortable to be upside down is breathing becomes harder. As you might know, babies breath by the umbilical cord, so they don’t have this problem.
Being upsidedown is uncomfortable because of the pressure in our heads due to gravity pulling all our blood down. A baby simple isn’t large enough to notice much difference.
Also, grown ups have a lot of blood in the body that will give pressure on the head/brain. A babys body is way smaller in comparison, so not that much blood pressure on the brain when upside down.
(Small kids can hang upside down in the playground way longer than adults)
Babies aren’t head down constantly in the womb. Up until the last couple of weeks of pregnancy, the baby is maneuvering around all over the place.
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