Chimpanzee mothers have a labor of about 40 minutes, while first-time human mothers can have a labor of 12 to 16 hours. Human pregnancies are longer than expected for our size, determined by a metabolic threshold rather than the size of the baby's head. There's a biological and economic similarity in when humans go into labor, as it becomes too costly for the mother's body to continue the pregnancy, leading to childbirth typically at full term to avoid risking the lives of mother and offspring.
In a special episode of People I (Mostly) Admire, Steve Levitt talks to Cat Bohannon about her new book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.
- RESOURCES:
- Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat Bohannon (2023).
- "Genomic Inference of a Severe Human Bottleneck During the Early to Middle Pleistocene Transition," by Wangjie Hu, Ziqian Hao, Pengyuan Du, Fabio Di Vincenzo, Giorgio Manzi, Jialong Cui, Yun-Xin Fu, Yi-Hsuan, and Haipeng Li (Science, 2023).
- "The Greatest Invention in the History of Humanity," by Cat Bohannon (The Atlantic, 2023).
- "A Newborn Infant Chimpanzee Snatched and Cannibalized Immediately After Birth: Implications for 'Maternity Leave' in Wild Chimpanzee," by Hitonaru Nishie and Michio Nakamura (American Journal of Biological Anthropology, 2018).
- "War in the Womb," by Suzanne Sadedin (Aeon, 2014).
- "Timing of Childbirth Evolved to Match Women’s Energy Limits," by Erin Wayman (Smithsonian Magazine, 2012).
- "Bonobo Sex and Society," by Frans B. M. de Waal (Scientific American, 2006).