Across the mammal family tree, difficult labor appears far more common than many people have assumed, turning up not just in livestock and pets, but in wild deer, seals, whales, primates, and ...

For centuries, childbirth’s pain was explained as punishment; more recently, as the evolutionary price of walking upright and bearing large-brained babies. But if difficult birth occurs across ...

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 ...

Human birth has a reputation for danger. The usual explanation is simple enough: walking upright narrowed the pelvis, while ...