The history of vaginal birth

Abstract

Vaginal delivery, as known today, is a still unfinished product that originated hundreds of million years ago, much before mammals evolved on land. In this article, we will discuss the way in which our direct ancestors were born over the eons until the present day, focusing on the factors that presented substantial changes in how birth occurred, in relation to our earlier ancestors. The history begins with the first amniotes around 300 million years ago and ends with the appearance of the first Homo sapiens around 160,000 years ago.