ArticleCommunications biology2022
Dynamic finite-element simulations reveal early origin of complex human birth pattern.
Article in Communications biology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 14 papers.
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14 citing papers in PubMed.
- From pelvic geometry to modal compliance: sex-specific deformation pathways in the human pelvic ring.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2026Article
- Humans are not unique: difficult birth is common in placental mammals.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Insights into Neanderthal development, childbirth, and locomotion from the Palomas and Dederiyeh pelves.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- The extent of the hip bone sexual dimorphism in two Italian coeval modern skeletal samples.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Gradual exacerbation of obstetric constraints during hominoid evolution implied by re-evaluation of cephalopelvic fit in chimpanzees.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- No birth-associated maternal mortality in Japanese macaques (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Obstetrical Constraints and the Origin of Extended Postnatal Brain Maturation in Hominin Evolution.Biology · 2024Article
- The evolution of human altriciality and brain development in comparative context.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- Magnetic resonance imaging pelvimetric measurements as predictors for emergent cesarean delivery in obstructed labor.European journal of obstetrics & gynecology and reproductive biology: X · 2023Article
- Fast soft-tissue deformations coupled with mixed reality toward the next-generation childbirth training simulator.Medical & biological engineering & computing · 2023Article
- There is an obstetrical dilemma: Misconceptions about the evolution of human childbirth and pelvic form.American journal of biological anthropology · 2023Review
- Shared reproductive disruption, not neural crest or tameness, explains the domestication syndrome.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Human cooperation and evolutionary transitions in individuality.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Take it to the limit: The limitations of energetic explanations for birth timing in humans.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Human infants are born neurologically immature, potentially owing to conflicting selection pressures between bipedal locomotion and encephalization as suggested by the obstetrical dilemma hypothesis. Australopithecines are ideal for investigating this trade-off, having a bipedally adapted pelvis, yet relatively small brains. Our finite-element birth simulations indicate that rotational birth cannot be inferred from bony morphology alone. Based on a range of pelvic reconstructions and fetal head sizes, our simulations further imply that australopithecines, like humans, gave birth to immature, secondary altricial newborns with head sizes smaller than those predicted for non-human primates of the same body size especially when soft tissue thickness is adequately approximated. We conclude that australopithecines required cooperative breeding to care for their secondary altricial infants. These prerequisites for advanced cognitive development therefore seem to have been corollary to skeletal adaptations for bipedal locomotion that preceded the appearance of the genus Homo and the increase in encephalization.
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