Originally published at: A mama seal gives birth on an Oahu beach, caught on video | Boing Boing
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Allow me to channel my former self: “Duh mirakull of boyth.”
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Having watched (and assisted) several humans give birth, it still boggles my mind how “hands” off births in the rest of the animal kingdom are. Like, we humans are there grabbing and twisting and catching but mama seal a. doesn’t have hands and b. is doing this all on her own. Amazing.
Also, bebe seal is adorbs.
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I guess that is the advantage of having evolved as a social animal that uses tools. If we didn’t, then we would have to have largely “hands free” births as well.
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And then you have the reproductive cycle of the female hyena. I’m not going to spoil it, go look it up. And despair.
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Re: “hands free” births for humans
Cephalo-pelvic disproportion. A side effect of the human pelvis evolving that way to make upright walking feasible.
The average woman’s birth canal is roughly 2.5 cm narrower than the average with of a newborn’s head. Smooth passage through the birth canal is not an option. The passage is only possible because a newborn’s head is somewhat compressible because the skull bones have not fused into a single plate yet.
I am overly simplifying this, but the whole thing really works only because human babies are totally underdeveloped compared to any other mammal. Those are more or less fully developed mini-versions of their parents. They still have to grow and learn, but already can do all the basic stuff they need to survive from day one.
To paraphrase my mum: if men had to give birth, sex ed, contraception, abortions, etc would never have been controversial issues, anywhere, ever.
To paraphrase Bill Bryson: if there ever was anything to challenge the concept of “Intelligent Design” it is human childbirth.
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