Kicked in the Balls vs Childbirth – Which is More Painful?

Here’s a sanitized version of the transcript:

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Every so often, you read a news headline that makes you shudder, such as this one in the US: “Ohio man charged with murder after a fatal kick” or this one in the UK: “Man dies after being injured during a fight over parking space.” Getting hit in sensitive areas can be serious, and we’ll explain why soon, but first, we need to talk about pain and compare these incidents to what many women have said is the worst pain in the world.

The problem with both these kinds of pain is that statistically, there’s a decent chance you’re going to experience one of them. From 2015–2019, 13.2% of American women aged 15 to 24 and 84.3% of those aged 40 to 49 had, at one point in their life, had a biological child, according to the CDC. Believe it or not, we couldn’t find a scientific study that told us how many times a man gets injured in that area throughout his life. Thankfully, there’s a thing called Reddit, where citizen scientists provide us with anecdotal data. When the question was asked on a thread about how often this happens to men, one user said, “When you’re young, probably a few times a year.” But we like this answer from another user, “Too many.”

On a separate thread, the same question was asked again. This time, a user expanded a bit, saying, “Many times. They are all the worst times. Even a light touch can be enough to put you down.” A response to that was, “Even sitting down slightly uncomfortably can still react negatively. And, of course, the discomfort can last a good 10 minutes.”

Ok, but why does it hurt so much? Why would nature, or perhaps a higher power, design a body part that makes you so vulnerable? If the world was created in six days, could there not have been a better design for protection? Actually, it’s nature we need to focus on here, not celestial designers. If there was a vote and all the men could choose to have their organs on the inside of their bodies, they’d all vote yes. Unfortunately, nature is more of a dictatorship rather than a democracy.

These organs, which unfortunately have to hang outside of our bodies, produce significant amounts of sperm. In a process called spermatogenesis, your overworked organs make millions of sperm every day, close to 1,500 sperm a second. A full sperm production cycle takes about 64 days, during which time you will have generated around 8 billion sperm. If you live to old age, you might create 2 trillion sperm. The process never stops until you die, although, by the time you’re 50, the production might decrease by about 30% and continue to decline as you age.

In one ejaculation, there could be anywhere from 40 to 500 million sperm cells in that nutrient-rich fluid we call semen. But for this amazing process to work, your organs need to be at the right temperature, which is about five degrees cooler than the inside of your body. Otherwise, the factory would break down. The reason why they shrink when you’re cold is that they are trying to maintain this perfect temperature.

Sure, some animals have internal organs, but they have specialized temperature-regulating systems. We humans can’t do that. We have a design flaw, and we have to make do with what we’ve got, which means having them on the outside. At least they’re somewhat protected by our legs, and without thinking about it, we tend to protect them at all times.

The reason why it hurts so much to get hit there is that your brain wants you to protect them. If getting hit didn’t hurt so much, they might get damaged, which would prevent sperm production. Pain, in a way, is both a friend and an enemy. The area is populated with many nerves, and for a good reason. Even when you sense danger, you naturally pull your organs closer to your body with your muscles.

As for why when you take a perfect shot, you end up down on your knees with terrible pain in your stomach and not just at the contact site, that’s because those organs evolved in your abdominal cavity, so the nerves there are connected to the nerves at ground zero. You can even feel nauseous or dizzy. This is due to something called the vagal reflex, which is a nerve signal that goes all the way up your spinal cord and brain stem, stimulating the nausea centers in your brain.

Now, there’s not a great deal of tissue protecting those organs, but there is some protection. They are spongy, which helps absorb shock. You can take a good hit down there, and while you might suffer intense pain for a while, it’s unlikely you’ll have done any serious damage. Studies tell us only about 1% of emergency room visits for trauma involve blunt trauma to that area. If the pain doesn’t go away, or there’s concerning swelling, or you find it hard to urinate, or you have a fever, see a doctor, as the faster you do that, the less chance you’ll have of becoming infertile.

In the intro, we mentioned a guy from Ohio who died as a result of being kicked. In 2013, a man broke into his house and repeatedly kicked him when he refused to give up his money. His organs ruptured. 90% of the time, ruptured organs that receive treatment within 72 hours can be fixed, and the person ends up just fine, but this individual developed an infection that became serious. The attacker was subsequently charged with murder.

In 2014, Vice published a headline about an Irish teen who went into cardiac arrest after a schoolmate injured him. It seems this teen suffered from something called vasovagal syncope, which means the trauma and pain got so bad that he fainted. Pain and extreme emotional distress can make you pass out, and something called neuro-cardiogenic syncope can make your blood pressure suddenly drop, endangering your health. This kid survived, but the man in China may have experienced a similar drop in blood pressure, resulting in his death.

It’s incredibly rare for this to happen, and with ruptures, as long as you get it seen to, it’s also rare for something fatal to occur as a result of infection or tissue death. What’s important, though, is that getting kicked can be so painful that it causes you to faint and, in some cases, leads to serious health issues.

Now, before we give you the results, we need to look at women, who can be thankful they’ll never experience that kind of injury. Even so, childbirth is no joke. You often see it on lists of the most painful things that can happen to a person, although many women share very different experiences.

According to a survey commissioned by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, 45% of women who had their first child said it was a better experience than they expected. These women had medical pain management, though. Nine out of ten women in the survey said that with pain management, things were actually fine. We don’t want to put women off having children. It doesn’t have to be a bad experience. Many women have said it was a beautiful experience with tolerable pain.

However, childbirth can be deadly despite being much safer than in the past. In late medieval England, there were around 1,300 mother deaths per 100,000 childbirths. In the UK in 2020, that number was 9.2 deaths for every 100,000 childbirths. The WHO says close to 300,000 women around the world die each year as a result of pregnancy or childbirth. While most of the Western world is very safe regarding childbirth, in some countries, the numbers are much higher.

But why does childbirth have to be painful and involve risks in some nations? Was it a cruel design? We might again ask what nature was doing when it made childbirth painful. There’s a concept called the obstetrical dilemma, which relates to the evolution of the human head and the challenges it poses during childbirth.

For the average woman, labor lasts around nine hours, especially for first-time mothers. This is much longer than many animals, who usually give birth in a much shorter time. Women experience contractions of the muscles of the uterus, which feels like painful cramping in the abdomen, groin, and back. There’s also pressure on the bladder and bowels, and the baby stretches the birth canal, causing discomfort.

Not only that, but the contractions keep coming, and as labor goes on, there’s less time between them. With less time to relax, it can feel overwhelming. Psychologically, this can be really hard for women, which is why many learn techniques to cope. Some women also take medication for pain relief.

Many women opt for an epidural, which is a form of local anesthesia that numbs the lower body. But some choose to go fully natural and rely on breathing and relaxation techniques. We found testimonials from women who chose the natural route.

Childbirth is complex, and women can have very unique experiences. Some say it was painful, while others found it manageable. Some women reported that childbirth was not as painful as they had expected, while others described it as excruciating.

So, when comparing childbirth to getting injured, it seems you either get a minor hit, which causes fleeting discomfort, or you experience a severe injury that can lead to significant pain and distress. They are very hard to compare.

In conclusion, while both experiences can be painful, the nature of the pain and the context in which it occurs are very different. Pain is subjective, but we think our conclusion is sound.

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This version maintains the core information while removing explicit language and sensitive details.