I'm not sure what the "should" in this title means . . . at all.

In an ideal world would it be better for childbirth to be pain-free? Sounds right to me.

In the real world, however, reports of the pain of childbirth

sound worse than just about any other pain of that duration I've heard of. And the duration can be many, many hours. A friend once compared the experience to shitting a watemelon.

Now that it's understood how to provide anaesthesia to women in labor without risking giving the neonate a worrisome dose as well, it seems like a good choice for a lot of women -- especially if their build, the size of the baby, and their family history suggests that major-league pain is a likely outcome of unanaesthetized labor.

Meanwhile, Ina May Gaskin and other sources (like the book of three decades ago, "Childbirth is Ecstasy") cannot be dismissed out of hand; there is an abundance of evidence -- though anecdotal -- that there may be something to this after all.

From an evolutionary point of view, it makes sense that intense pleasure should accompany childbirth in order to facilitate mother-child bonding. And for the most part, it seems that non-human female mammals in the wild do not seem to go through the labor agony that some human mothers do.

(Meanwhile, one must wonder whether aspects of our modern lifestyle or childbirth practices contribute to this agony. Do women around the globe across different cultures tend to have the same amount of labor pain as American women often do? If not, it would benefit us to learn why and how some cultures do better with this.)

(On the third hand, some biologists suggests that because walking upright is so recent in the course of human evolution and almost unique among mammals, childbirth has not had enough time to "catch up".)

A suggestion: For women who would like to experiment with a less-anaesthetized childbirth without risking the worst kind of agony, perhaps they can choose to receive

epidurals of lower dosage. (And certainly giving birth horizontally can't help things -- it should be at least done on an incline, and perhaps even tried in the squatting position if possible.

By studying other cultures and trying non-standard practices we may hope to learn what we have forgotten.

The article states:

Still, nearly two-thirds of women delivering at large hospitals nationwide do receive epidural anesthesia, probably because, as Sanghavi writes so vividly, "the vaginal canal is so richly supplied with nerve endings and pain fibers that it's almost uniquely suited to create agony."

There are many reason that some women experience childbirth as excruciating. But to say that "the vaginal canal is richly supplied with nerve endings" is precisely the opposite of what I've read for many decades in many reliable venues.

Vivid? Perhaps. True? I strongly doubt it.

I think Garrison Keillor is drawing the wrong humorous inference here, since he left out Greenwich Village, Cape Cod, and San Francisco.

Key West, New Orleans, Santa Monica, Greenwich Village, Cape Cod, San Francisco:

What they all have in common is not the weather, but that they are at the end of the line.

The massive ignorance, arrogance, stupidity, and self-righteousness expressed in so many of these letters makes me feel like crying:

* Women who've given birth once or not at all who completely dismiss what a pediatrician who's been present at 150 births has learned from them.

* People are certain that the vagina is just filled with pain-sensitive nerves despite many authoritative citations to the contrary.

* Women who think a man can't possibly be knowledgeable on the subject of childbirth merely because he can't give birth himself.

* People who think there's only one correct answer to "Natural Childbirth, or Drug-Assisted Childbirth?".

* People who think their own experience typifies everyone else's.

* People who think that "90% of the nerve endings in the vagina are within the first few inches" means that the vagina is necessarily sensitive there. (More than 90% of the butterfat in skim milk is right on the surface, too.)

Homo sapiens? I don't think so.

. . . when Broadsheet writers have nothing better to write about. So if a breast photo on the cover of a parenting magazine attracts criticism -- that criticism is WRONG, of course.

If on the other hand Vanity Fair magazine prints a photo layout with many breasts in evidence, then THAT is wrong because . . . it gives Broadsheet writers something to complain about. (Don't worry, no one cares about having consistent principles.)

And if a sports brassiere company depicts the effect of running on the motion of breasts (completely irrelevant to their products or customers, of course) then THAT is VERY BAD, especially since it opens up the possibility that someone who enjoys looking at the naked female breast for non-business reasons might derive some pleasure from it.

Correction: The concern is that a male might derive pleasure from it. (It's OK if it's a lesbian, though. I'm sure you can clearly see the perfectly logical reasoning here.)

(P.S. The word "flak" in the sense of negative feedback is corrrectly spelled without a "c" in it. A "flack" -- on the other hand -- is a P.R. person.)