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?

ETA - wasn’t at birth but the day after.

Good question!!! I always wondered this too... I also wonder why human females struggle so much to give birth, and suffer so much pain, and sometimes damage from giving birth, when most other animals plop them out in a few seconds with just a grunt. Something that should be natural is horrific for many women, often needs medical intervention, and sometimes needs medical help to fix the damage. Who'd be a fucking woman eh???

Wouldn't have happened if they'd left Lillith there.

You'd think tho that successful genetic mutations would favour women who birth more easily, so perhaps have a large pelvis, etc. rather than there being nothing seemingly evolved in favour of not killing off Mom.

I wonder this about birds. Most hatch with closed eyes and no feathers and are so vulnerable and eat regurgitated food.
Chickens hatch with feathers, eyes open, can walk and feed with 12 hours.

This
It's all about survival

Yep it's bc we insist on walkign upright which means our pelvises are not wide enough to carry the human baby until it is 2 yrs old. That's why.

but difficult births don't "kill mom" any more!
My DD was a C section (breech), born of a C section (I was also breech). That's two generations that shouldn't be here!

I wonder if this is to do with where they make their nests. It's safer higher up away from harm, but at ground level there are all sorts of predators, so maybe the babies need to be more alert. I can only think of chickens and ducks. I'm not sure which other birds nest low down.

Yes there are others. We are called altricial mammals- those who are helpless at birth and reply on their mother. Others are cats and dogs.

Marsupials get to give birth to teeny tiny babies, then carry them around in a pouch... But mammals...pain and trauma. What is that about.
Excuse my pedantry, but marsupials are mammals. They have mammary glands and lactate to feed their babies.
While I'm airing my useless knowledge: atricial species are the ones where newborns are helpless, and precocial are the species born with hair or feathers, that are walking around hours after being born.

That is so cute!

I'll have a 4th if I can get one of those precocial ones

Nerd 😜

Maybe what we experience is the "evolved" form. Just look at what hyenas go through...

Spoiler: they give birth through their clitoris. It often tears 😬

I worked in a vets and can summise you have never seen newborn kittens/puppies/hamsters/squirals etc... the are litrally blind, shivering, helpless fluff balls.

They stay that way less time because they have far shorter lifespans.

Take a cat for example their pregnancy is only about 2 months, their full lifespan only 12-18 years vs a human pregnancy (9 months) and lifespan (72-73 years) so obviously their 'baby' phase in relation to time frame is shorter too but they are still completely helpless at birth.

Trapped/lost kittens also cry like crazy for help unless they are so unwell they are dying.

Evolutionary benefits of adults with superior intelligence from brain size outweigh costs of birthing babies with relatively large heads compared to pelvis and then the long period of dependency while development continues. Increased mortality and impacts on parents of dependency of infants and even reduced fecundity massively outweighed by competitive advantage of adults that survive.