from my summer 2008 advenure

Monday, March 2, 2009

How do babies get here?




It is about to happen - the stork is about to deliver our very first grandchild!

Even though they look frail and delicate - rumor has it the stork is known to deliver babies all the way up to 10+ lbs! Amazing!


Anyone know how in the world the stork delivery story got started? Did some parent long ago just panic?


From Wikipedia:


In Western culture the White Stork is a symbol of childbirth. In Victorian times the details of human reproduction were difficult to approach, especially in reply to a younger child's query of "Where did I come from?"; "The stork brought you to us" was the tactic used to avoid discussion of sex.[citation needed] This habit was derived from the once popular superstition that storks were the harbingers of happiness and prosperity, and possibly from the habit of some storks of nesting atop chimneys, down which the new baby could be imagined as entering the house.


The image of a stork bearing an infant wrapped in a sling held in its beak is common in popular culture. The small pink or reddish patches often found on a newborn child's eyelids, between the eyes, on the upper lip, and on the nape of the neck are sometimes still called "stork bites". In fact they are clusters of developing veins that often soon fade.


The stork's folkloric role as a bringer of babies and harbinger of luck and prosperity may originate from the Netherlands and Northern Germany, where it is common in children's nursery stories.

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