It’s simple human nature to question things – Where do we come from? What lies in the far reaches of the galaxy? What is our actual purpose?
But beyond all of that is the one question that’s been plaguing us since kingdom come – what hurts more giving birth or getting kicked in the privates or childbirth? Let’s start with the nuts.
The testicles are lined with several specialized nerve cells called Nociceptors that react to pain only once a threshold of pain is encountered. The testicles are also connected to many nerves in the stomach and the brain’s vomit center, which which is why you feel pain throughout the abdomen when the balls are…attacked. The testicles are also unprotected, which makes it extremely sensitive to even minor pain. This is why a kick to the balls causes nausea, high blood pressure, increased heart rate and sweating.
All of that sounds downright horrendous. But the pain isn’t over yet. We’re now moving to childbirth *Shudders*
Remember those pesky nociceptors we were just talking about? Well during childbirth, the urinal distension triggers several nociceptors, leading to extreme pain and fatigue. This is made worse by the fact that a female’s hips become smaller, while the head of the foetus becomes bigger, causing acute and visceral localized pain. All this tension, muscle stretching, nausea and overall labour pain lasts for approximately 8 hours.
So getting kicked in the balls causes a brief rush of pain that dissipates in some time, while labour pain comes and goes, but for several hours. To sum it up, there’s no proper way to compare the two and as it’s a subjective experience with too many variables.
So finally, if you keep the duration of suffering in mind, childbirth is hands-down worse. In fact, nine out of ten mothers face more pain during child birth than a guy when kicked. But if you take duration out of the mix, pain is still subjective, and there are too many variables in play, such as the size and weight of the baby, the age of the person, the force of the kick, and further on. And just like how some people choose to go through childbirth, some people, like the one below, choose to be kicked in the nads.
According to pain scales used by doctors, labour pain can vary from mild to intense.
Meanwhile, these graphs show you how the experience of pain differs between the two.
So there you go – pain is subjective, you can’t really compare the two, and there’s no real winners in this battle.