Some scientists defend an age-old skeletal explanation for childbirth — dubbed the obstetrical dilemma — while others propose a metabolic alternative.
But Webb interprets these findings differently. To her, the null relationship is confirmation of an existing constraint on hips; evolution of bipedalism homed in on a narrow distribution of efficient pelvic shapes, she explains. Because our population is already filtered for good walkers, looking within this narrow scope of variation won’t reveal any meaningful differences.
Of course, there’s also an issue with the so-called solution to the obstetrical dilemma: Human pregnancies aren’t premature. Sure, we’re born with less than 30 percent of our adult brain mass, the. And after we’re born, we must grow and rewire our entire nervous system to learn behaviors like speaking, sitting up and walking.
“Pound for pound, given maternal size, we have the longest pregnancies, we have the biggest babies and the biggest brains,” Dunsworth says. “That doesn't look like we're born early. It looks like we take a lot out of mama during pregnancy and she births a great, big, gargantuan baby.” “There has to be an energetic limit to growing living tissue inside of you day after day,” Dunsworth says. “That just seemed obvious while I was looking into evidence for the obstetrical dilemma and not finding any.”
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