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
Humans have a huge brain, which requires a big head, and getting that head out of the mother is very hard. Humans walk upright, rather than on all four legs, and that leads to less spacious pelvic geometry.
For a baby to mature, and build strong muscles, it needs to use its brain to control those muscles. To program the brain, you need to get the baby out into the environment where moving your head is good for something.
Evolution gets you what’s best for survival, and it turns out that upright walking and a big programmable brain is more useful that a small brain with more instinctual behaviors. Birth only needs to be “good enough” that many infants survive.
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