Why are human babies so helpless and incapable of anything compared to other baby mammals?

[Keyansier]

Compared to other mammals, human babies seem so incapable. They need looking after for so much longer when other mammals can walk, run, and eat from the very second they drop out of their mother. Other mammals also have instinct: if they are born without their mother or father watching their birth, they automatically know to hide/go into the sea/climb a tree etc, human babies don't know anything about anything except how to cry (other mammals don't cry as this is a weakness). How come humans are seen as the intelligent species but our young are so fragile compared against all other mammals?

Our brains are too big for our pelvis's. It was an evolutionary trade off.

It’s a trade off to give us bigger brains!

Its evolution, humans had to sacrifice the development of babies in order to change the pelvis to allow upright walking. If human babies were born at the same developmental stage as other animals we'd need to be pregnant at least twice as long and they'd be too big to birth naturally.

They have to come out "early" so they can fit through our pelvises without killing everyone involved. We get the big brains and ability to walk upright, and in return, our babies are pretty useless at birth.

Yes our babies are born about 6 months or so premature as an evolutionary pay off between larger head size for larger brain, esophagus for speech balanced with mum's smaller pelvis size to allow walking upright.

Fascinating responses, thank you everyone.

Do any other mammals need looking after (and as long for) as much as human babies? I know dogs and cats are born blind and helpless, but they also seem more capable of a lot more things more quickly than humans.

It's not quite true that newborns don't Habe survival instinct. They are attracted to the smell of their mother's nipples and if alert enough at birth can crawl up mum's body to the source of food (given enough time). en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_crawl

Orangutans stay with their mothers for about 9 years. That's the longest apart from humans I think.

This happened to me! I had an EMCS so it took a few days for my milk to come in.

I was alerted to it finally arriving by DD wriggling her way down my body to latch on and drink it! Was an amazing moment.

They are not that quick in terms of development if you work out the proportion of helplessness to the total lifespan. I would do this but my head is full of molten concrete with a cold.
Herbivores need to be on their feet quickly, because they are prey (unless they can be hidden away in a burrow like mice and rabbits, this is difficult if you are the size of an elephant or giraffe .) I think that carnivores tend to be more dependent for longer, until they are old enough to go out and start slaying for themselves.

The brain evolved quicker than the pelvis.
That makes a fully-formed brain in a fully-formed skull too large to fit through the birth canal. So human babies must instead be born 'early' and therefore incapable.

We have the longest period of maturation that's why. 18yrs

I wonder more about why evolution hasn't made it any easier for any mammal to give birth. It's so painful and traumatic for all of them. Marsupials get to give birth to teeny tiny babies, then carry them around in a pouch. Birds get to pop a little egg out of their bums. Seahorses make the males do it. But mammals...pain and trauma. What is that about.

Quite a few species take a similar time to mature. As other pp say, it's because of brain size.

Jesus. I'm imagining carrying my twins until they were 9 months old. Imagine

Eve

Thats an interesting point and also relates to a question raised from the post two posts previous to yours: If it was possible for a fully formed human skull to pass through the birth canal, would humans be "superhuman"?

Fruit is bad.

I would have liked to have been a marsupial - they seem to have the right idea. But I guess they evolved that way because there weren't really any natural predators.

Guinea pigs are pretty well "done" when they are born - they are mini versions of their parents. But of course they are not blessed in the intelligence area!

Because otherwise, we would never squeeze them out.

Big brains means we need to come out sooner or we wouldn’t fit out at all. learnt this in biology in high school.

Evolution doesn’t have a will. It’s successful genetic mutations, not a conscious plan.

Females would just be massive in comparison to males. In a lot of species, the female is larger than the male because of their need to carry numerous eggs or offspring.

Both my babies did this. It was fascinating to watch. Also the ‘needling’ I think it’s called, to get the milk flowing.

We managed to crawl out of the swamp yet not one random mutation has changed childbirth or pregnancy for the positive since then. Thankfully our big brains has means science finds ways to help. But it's still annoying.