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IJE Advance Access published online on February 14, 2008
International Journal of Epidemiology, doi:10.1093/ije/dyn015
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2008; all rights reserved.

Commentary: Maternal constraint is a pre-eminent regulator of fetal growth

Mark A Hanson1,* and Keith M Godfrey1,2

1 Institute of Developmental Sciences.
2 MRC Epidemiology Resource Centre, University of Southampton, UK.

* Corresponding author. Institute of Developmental Sciences, Southampton General Hospital (Mailpoint 887), Tremona Road, Southampton SO16 6YD, UK. E-mail: m.hanson@soton.ac.uk

Accepted 14 January 2008

The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below.

A fundamental aspect of human reproduction is the close tolerance between the size of the fetal head at term and of the pelvic canal through which it must pass. Human evolution has favoured the development of a large brain, but this created a conundrum: avoiding obstructed labour means being born so immature that postnatal survival might be reduced; on the other hand delaying birth until brain growth was sufficient for such survival means running the risk of obstructed labour, presumably fatal for both mother and fetus in the absence of modern obstetric care. Such considerations suggest that maternal skeletal . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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