Childbirth was probably easier for most women in early cultures, especially in hunter-gatherer societies, where everyone was accustomed to physical labor and supple and fit from daily activity.

The statement advances a comparative, evolutionary-historical claim: that the physical conditioning typical of subsistence life—regular walking, lifting, squatting, and other whole-body movement—may have made labor and delivery less difficult for many women than in more sedentary modern settings. It also implies that “difficulty” in childbirth is not purely biological fate but is shaped by environment, daily activity, and cultural practices around pregnancy and birth. In the broader debates Suzanne Arms is known for, the idea functions as a critique of modern industrial lifestyles and medicalized childbirth, suggesting that contemporary discomfort and complications may be exacerbated by reduced physical fitness and by social arrangements that separate pregnancy from ordinary embodied work.