Why human babies cannot walk immediately meanwhile other mammal babies can walk immediately
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Humans babies are born premature compared to many other animals
The problem is our brains are very large making the birthing process complicated and dangerous for the mother. So babies have to be born very early in development so that their heads will fit through the birth canal.
This results in human babies being virtually helpless for more than a year after they are born, and the death rate among infants is also very high.
Without the advent of modern medical care the childhood death rate is around 20%
evolution. we evolved to have big brains for us to do all this thinking with. if the baby waited until the brain was developed enough, the skull would be too large for the mother to give birth. so we evolved to give birth early in development. the child is week can can not support itself, so we developed social structures and family groups to raises the child and look after the mother.
Pregnancy is risky in evolutionary terms. The longer the gestation period, the more developed the babies can come out, but it’s also making the chances that the pregnancy will end higher. Pregnancy is demanding physically on the mother and she also has to consistently consume a lot of extra food. This means that in nature, a long pregnancy is risky because it’s unlikely to be successful. The second problem with humans is that our brains are disproportionately big and developed, which not only makes birth harder and riskier for the mother and the baby but also a lot of our early development is not just about the development of our bodies but also our brains, which require and consume a lot of energy.
Basically babies are gestated a little bit more of the bare minimum to be viable and then they’re popped out. Any longer and they’d get stuck on the way out.
Difference between predator/prey species. If you are another animal’s food, you want to be up and walking as fast as you can. Predator species have longer helpless stages, like felines, canines, bear cubs, etc.
If by other mammal babies you mean horses, cows, and deers, consider that those types of mammals represent a pretty small sample of the category. Kittens, mice, puppies, rabbits, and many other mammals are born completely blind. Marsupials are born the size of a jelly bean and have to finish gestating in the pouch.
Grazing animals have to be able to walk shortly after birth because they rarely have access to sheltered areas where they can raise newborns. Most other mammals raise their young in some kind of burrow or den. Humans evolved to carry our babies around- they have the grip reflex so they could hold onto the fur of our ancestors.
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