Why is human childbirth so dangerous and inefficient?

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I hear of women in my community and across the world either having stillbirths or dying during the process of birth all the time. Why?

How can a dog or a cow give birth in the dirt and turn out fine, but if humans did the same, the mom/infant have a higher chance of dying? How can baby mice, who are similar to human babies (naked, gross, blind), survive the “newborn phase”?

And why are babies so big but useless? I understand that babies have evolved to have a soft skull to accommodate their big brain, but why don’t they have the strength to keep their head up?

In: Biology

28 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Birthing is a lot better than you think. Like with many things the negative news travels hard, loud and fast. The vast majority of women have no problems. Of all of the women I personally know whom I know about their pregnancy and birth experiences (>100) only one had problems and she survived. So that makes the rate of problems about 1%. Negative news is something we naturally focus on as a survival mechanism but it is important to look at the real statistics.

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