[Adaptations and constraints : obstetrical complications in the light of phylogenesis].

Among mammals, our species is the one whose females pay the heaviest price during parturition. Maternal morbidity and mortality remain a major global public health issue.Recent advances in paleoanthropology and evolutionary biology have shed new light on the complexity and dangerousness of childbirth in modern humans, compared with the great apes. This evolutionary conception invites us to understand and represent obstetrical pathology differently.