I was reminded about this when someone on facebook asked me to give a good example of UNintellegent design. So of course I immediately thought of childbirth. Firstly humans are born like 9 months premature because "someone" couldn't design our hips to be big enough to fit our massive brains out before they are really done cooking. But I've heard that this might be the very reason that fathers are involved in caring for children and might be the whole basis for the reason we humans tend to partner up and be social creatures in general, so maybe it has it's advantages.
I think the worst design flaw of my body I have come across so far is the fact that the cervix hurts like hell and takes a long time (usually, especially the first time) to fully dilate for birth. Come on, flying spaghetti monster or whoever you are, what gives?
When I imagined birth long before I had much knowledge of birth, I imagined that the part that hurt the most was pushing the baby out of a little 10 cm in diameter orifice. I was so wrong. Pushing doesn't hurt. Or I should say that pushing hurts SO much less than the dilation of the cervix, that you barely notice the hurt that pushing produces (at least on average, I've heard stories of women hating pushing; I loved it).
It's not the baby coming out that hurts, it's everything that must happen in order for you to be able to get the baby out that hurts. This is important to remember when you are in actual labor, that pain has a purpose, it's growing a hole big enough for a baby to come through.
I feel that this process could have been designed a little better. Why so much pain? Why does the cervix require such powerful contractions to open? And why for so long? It's takes about a day for those first time moms. A whole day where you basically have to be reminded every few minutes that your cervix is opening... slowly...
It's this pain that causes mothers to need several people there supporting them, usually. It's rare that a women goes off by herself to the woods to labor in solitude. And it is pain you cannot really understand until you've done it and you know it is the most you will ever probably feel. But it doesn't even get the baby out, it just opens up the cervix. After it is done you've still got an average of 2.5 hours of work to do pushing the baby out (but it feels like way less because you are so exhausted you fall asleep in between contractions).
So if you are pregnant and worried about pushing the baby out, don't be. Chances are pushing the baby out will be amazing. Be worried about the dilation of the cervix, because that hurts, especially those last few centimeters, luckily the more it hurts the faster it seems to go. And I have run across no intelligent reason for why yet. Perhaps an evolutionary scientist has studied this phenomenon.
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