Why human babies cannot walk immediately meanwhile other mammal babies can walk immediately
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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.
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