A human baby arrives in the world in a strange state, eyes open, ears working, brain growing fast, yet unable to move through the world in any meaningful way. That mix is the heart of a new argument ...

Human childbirth is commonly viewed as uniquely difficult and dangerous. The reason: The combination of bipedalism and large brains creates a tight fit between the baby and the birth canal. Research ...

Infants' helplessness demonstrates unique social implications for human development. In a new paper developmental psychology researchers from the University of Ottawa explored human infants' ...

According to a new study, chimpanzees, like humans, must contend with a confined bony birth canal when giving birth. In humans, the problem was exacerbated by our unique form of upright walking since ...

According to a new study, chimpanzees, like humans, must contend with a confined bony birth canal when giving birth. In humans, the problem is exacerbated by our unique form of upright walking, since ...

Human birth is far more challenging than that of other primates. In 1960, anthropologist Sherwood Washburn proposed a widely accepted explanation for the tight squeeze a baby experiences passing ...

The broader message is unsettling and clarifying at once. Human childbirth is risky, but it may not be uniquely risky. Instead, the research suggests that difficult birth is part of a wider mammalian ...

3D simulation of the birth canal of chimpanzees with (B) the fetal head in a fully extended position, the typical head alignment in apes, and (C) the fetal head in a fully flexed position, the usual ...

“Infants are unique in having their eyes and ears open, and in developing in a longer period of care. It could be that this period of helplessness is important to making us who we are as a species," ...