Tag: evolution

• Why Are Newborn Humans Useless? |Squished Pt3|

  

  Okay, so newborns are effectively needy hot water bottles. But instead of looking at their helplessness at birth as a negative thing, we should consider the benefits.

  Aradia Wyndham

  November 1, 2018

  Babies, Birth, Blog, Pregnancy

  advancement factor, altricity, ardipithecine, Australopithecus afarensis, bipedalism, Birth, brain size, coypu, dear hank and john, desilva, dunsworth, evolution, extrauterine spring, featured, fetal constraints, IMMR, Lucy, maternal, metabolism, natural selection, neonataes, newborns, nine banded armadillo, obstetrical dilemma, oxygen, pelvic width, podcast, Portmann, precocious, sambar deer, secondary altricity, social learning, useless, wild boar

• Body Hair

  

  Non-human apes don’t need a tool to carry their infants in part because they have body hair for their infants to cling to but it’s more complicated than simply having body hair and a baby that can grasp it.

  Aradia Wyndham

  October 24, 2018

  Evolution of Babywearing

  afarensis, amaral, apes, arboreal, attachment, Australopithecus, baby feet, baby hands, babywearing, back carry, bipedalism, body hair, chimpanzee, clinging, desilva, dorsal carry, evolution, friction, gibbon, gorilla, grasping, gravity, great apes, hair, hair loss, human, humans, IMMR, infant carrier, infants, invention, Jane Goodall, knuckle walking, Lucy, Mother Nurture, neonates, orangutan, primates, quadrupedal, Ross, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, static friction coefficient, tensile tester, the great denuding, ventral position, wall-scheffler

• The Myth of Childbearing Hips | Squished Pt 2 |

  

  These hips don’t lie. They were selected for by evolutionary pressures right along with bigger headed babies. Learn why female humans tend to have wider hips than males and why it has little to do with birth.

  Aradia Wyndham

  October 4, 2018

  Birth, Blog

  appeal to tradition, Australopithecus afarensis, bipedal efficiency, Birth, body, childbearing hips, childbirth, cultural lens, diagrams, dunsworth, Epstien, evolution, fallacy, fetal load, fetopelvic disproportion, hips, hominin, IMMR, labor, locomotor costs, lordosis, Lucy, medical myth, molding skull, mother, natural selection, neonate, obstetrical dilemma, obstetrics, rosenberg, warrener, whitcome

• Baby Feet

  

  Human feet are unique in the ape family, made for walking instead of grasping. For our babies this means two fewer grasping limbs to help cling to their mother, which means that during the evolution of bipedalism, infants had a harder time hanging on. How did our ancestors survive?

  Aradia Wyndham

  July 12, 2017

  Blog, Evolution of Babywearing

  afarensis, almaral, ape, Australopithecus, baby, baby feet, babywearing, bipedalism, Breastmilk, caloric costs, calories, chimpanzee, clinging, desilva, evolution, foot morphology, hominin, human, IMMR, infant, infant carrier, John Reader, laetoli tracks, Lucy, mother, newborns, opposable hallux, palmar grasp reflex, parent, parkers, plantar reflex, primitive, reflexes, riders, selam, tanzania, technology

• The Cost of Carrying

  

  This work is part of my project, The Evolution of Babywearing, which explores the evolutionary origins of the infant carrier and how it has shaped humanity as we know it. Many moons ago at a family gathering, a relative was complaining about her baby’s fussing, “He won’t let me put him down and he’s so […]

  Aradia Wyndham

  March 3, 2015

  Evolution of Babywearing

  africanus, altricial, baby, bipedalism, calories, carrying, energetic costs, evolution, exercise, foot morphology, health, in-arms, infant, Lucy, mothering, newborn, parenting, primates, sling, stone tool industry, tool use

• They See Me Riding

  

  Why is it that some mammals can just leave their babies in a den or nest, while others carry theirs around (or have them cling on) through out the day?

  Aradia Wyndham

  March 2, 2015

  Evolution of Babywearing

  altricial, ancestral state, baby sling, babywearing, Beng, biology, bipedalism, bottle feeding, breastfeeding, Breastmilk, Caroline Ross, carrying, chimpanzee, clade, co-adaptations, cooperative breeding, culture, daycare, dens, energetics, eutherian mammals, evolution, human life history, infant carrier, nests, nonnesting, nonoral carriers, parkers, precocious, reproductive cost, reproductive strategies, riders, secondary altricity, technology, triassic period, wall-scheffler