More Females are Born in Times of Stress

A stress-related decline in the sex ratio is no anomaly, but a biological mechanism that evolved to keep the species going, according to Ralph Catalano, professor of public health at the University of California, Berkeley. “From an evolutionary perspective, in stressful eras it’s a smarter bet to have a female child than a male child. A daughter is more apt to provide you with grandchildren,” Catalano tells me. In hard times, he explains, weak males are less likely to survive and to reproduce, while females are more likely to carry on the family line. Women who are carrying a weak male fetus would do better, from a Darwinian point of view, to end that pregnancy and start another, this time carrying a female or a stronger male.

Notes:

It makes sense evolutionarily to have females during times of stress as males are less likely to survive.

Folksonomies: pregnancy fetal development

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 Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Paul , Annie Murphy (2010-09-28), Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives, Free Press, Retrieved on 2011-02-08
Folksonomies: pregnancy fetal obstetrics