childbirth

• child-birth

From Middle English childbyrth [and other forms], perhaps a partial calque of Old Norse barnburðr (“childbearing, childbirth”, literally “bairn birth”); equivalent to child +‎ birth. Compare Swedish barnsbörd (“childbirth”), Icelandic barnsburður (“childbirth”).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃaɪldˌbɝθ/

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childbirth (usually uncountable, plural childbirths)

2. The fact or action of giving birth to a child, as the culmination of pregnancy.
   • 2001, Ellen Gruenbaum, The Female Circumcision Controversy: An Anthropological Perspective:

     The preference for tightness during intercourse is so well known in Western culture that U.S. obstetricians even have a term for the extra stitch they often perform when doing episiotomy repairs following childbirth: the "husband's stitch." The husband's stitch is intended to produce a smaller vaginal opening, to counteract the natural stretching of the tissues from sexual activity and childbirth and even to make the opening more constricted than it might have been before.

• death

• birth

• accoucheur
• labour
• maternity ward
• obstetrician
• parturition
• puerperal

• birthchild