Scientists in Austria and the US have found that the increase in the number of caesareans could actually be the reason babies are getting bigger in comparison to a woman’s pelvic canal.
Evolutionary biologist Dr Philipp Mitteroecker, from University of Vienna, predicts that C-sections have led to an “evolutionary increase of fetopelvic disproportion (the size of an infant’s head in relation to the dimensions of a mother’s pelvis) rates by 10 to 20 percent.”
The results of the study were published in the journal Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences, and highlights that while babies are getting bigger, a woman’s pelvis is not.
However, as Dr Mitteroecker explains this could be due to the fact that a smaller pelvis prevents premature birth as well as aids standing; a bigger baby is found to have “higher survival rates”.
Touching on the subject about whether this would mean non-caesarean births would be more difficult, the lead author of the study said: “It is difficult to judge how much the rate of birth complications has really increased."
"But I don't think that one day every baby needs to be delivered by C-sections."