BBC Focus Magazine

[Colm]

Just saw this question on the Q&A section.

I suppose the other point is, why would it bother? After all, once the baby is coming, it's coming, there's no stopping it - so it's not like you would be more likely to have a baby if it was more pleasant, so there'd be no evolutionary advantage in it.

Remember the "choice" part of having a baby is in the having sex, and that *is* pleasant.

[Doonhamer]

I think the fact that childbirth is difficult in humans shows how the evolutionary advantage gained by walking upright outweighed any disadvantages.

[Shadowwolf]

All it needs is to be is non-debilitating to the continued existence of the animal in question, once successful enough to ensure the continuity of the species there is then much less selective pressure that would drive a less painful birth.

That might sound right, not sure.

[The Beige Avenger]

Big head meets small vagina...

Religious types would tell you it's from eating the forbidden fruit and it (the pain) is Eve's punishment for leading Adam astray.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Big head meets small vagina...

.

Or, more exactly, big head meets small pelvic birth canal.

[The Beige Avenger]

...that's the one

[M Paul Lloyd]

You were close, but no cigar I'm afraid.

[The Beige Avenger]

You were close, but no cigar I'm afraid.

Not a Clinton - Lewinsky joke I hope....

[M Paul Lloyd]

[Healerman]

To be exact, in evolutionary terms, enlarging head meets limit of human birth canal. The reason why childbirth is so painful and why human babies are so "underdeveloped" compared with their simian cousins.

[Liam Sheppard]

the benefits of bipedAL UPRIGHTEDNESS obviously outweighed (evolutionarily) the pain of childbirth and relative helplessness of offspring. Whom have to be born helpless as their heads would get bigger the more developed they were