As the chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Catherine Spong is used to seeing a lot of baby bumps. But through her decades of practice, she’s been ...

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 ...

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 ...

Medical intervention in human birth has become so widespread that spontaneous delivery is an increasingly rare event. Yet convincing evidence reveals an underlying 24-hour biorhythm, reflecting a ...

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 ...

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 ...