Increase in number of Caesarean births affecting human evolution

As per a new study, many mothers are giving birth to babies by C-section due to narrow pelvic size ,resulting in changed physical characters in both mothers and babies.

This study was conducted at University of Vienna, Austria.  In this study, researchers estimate cases where the baby cannot fit down the birth canal have increased from 30 in 1,000 in the 1960s to 36 in 1,000 births today. An increase of 0.6% in the number of C-sections performed in hospitals over a fifty year period might be large enough to call it statistically significant.

As per the research it is estimated that the global rate of cases where the baby could not fit through the maternal birth canal was 3%, or 30 in 1,000 births.Over the past 50 or 60 years, this rate has increased to about 3.3-3.6%, so up to 36 in 1,000 births.

That is about a 10-20% increase of the original rate, due to the evolutionary effect.

The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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