Is it because of the whole big head/bipedalism thing? Other mammals can pop out babies in no time and it seems like that would be way more advantageous for multiple reasons (less stress on mom and baby, not in a vulnerable position for hours in the wild, etc). Why does the norm skew towards a day rather than hours?
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It almost all comes down to our upright posture combined with our high intelligence.
Our high intelligence requires a big brain, but our upright posture requires relatively narrow hips or else it is very difficult to walk.
So the current situation of having very difficult childbirth is essentially an evolutionary compromise between those 2 requirements.
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