i wonder if there has been an increase in maternal mortality due to large-headed babies since the invention of the c-section. i.e. large-headedness can survive sometimes, but when a c-section isn't available, the mother is more likely to die.
I've had similar thoughts, but I think that that larger head size being passed along would only occur (or much more frequently) in those areas with c-sections readily available. The mortality rate would probably only increase in the relatively rare instances where the mother was not able to reach a hospital or chose/was forced not to utilize hospital services even in an emergency.
In areas where c-sections are not readily available, large-headedness would not be passed along as much and therefore the mortality rates would probably remain much the same as it ever was.
I could be completely wrong, of course.
"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -
The Iron Heel by Jack London
"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea