Focus on western women 'skewed our ideas of what birth should look like'

Study finds large variation in shape of birth canals around world - with implications for description of birth used in standard textbooks

A focus on western women has skewed our understanding of evolution and twisted ideas of what birth should look like, scientists say.

Researchers have found a large variation in the shape of the birth canal between women from different parts of the world - a finding they say has implications both for our understanding of how the pelvis has evolved and our ideas about how babies should move as they leave the womb.