Energy Production During Pregnancy Is Vastly Underestimated

THE ENERGY IT TAKES TO MAKE A BABY HAS BEEN VASTLY UNDERESTIMATED

No wonder pregnant women are always tired.

Carissa Wong resurrected this subject recently in a Feature article in Nature magazine, pointing out that an Australian ecologist and evolutionary biologist in May of this year suggested that the extra energy it takes a human to produce a baby could be as much as 24 times more than had been previously estimated in what were considered the best models. What appears to make up the difference from earlier estimates are so-called indirect costs, the energy mothers expend in making (!) and carrying their pregnancies (in contrast to the direct costs which is the energy invested and stored in their offspring). These new data now suggest that, contrary to older models, indirect costs by-far outweigh direct costs.

REFERENCES

1. Wong C. nature 2024;634:768-769

2. Ginthere etal., science 2024;384:763-767