Question about Human births

Everyone knows that the human birth is at 9 months, for a healthy, normal baby. We also know that humans are actually born prematurely due to our extremely large and developed brains. Thus, we are born before we can walk, unlike most mammals or other animals. I was just wondering how many months would a baby remain in the womb if humans waited until the child was developed enough to walk before birthing it. Just curious, thanks.

The average baby starts to walk between 10-14 months of age.
That's literally a 4 month stretch.
No way in hell I'd wanna be pregnant for that much longer thanks.
WHY the question?
It would have been easy enough to research this yourself I may add.

Listen, I had to wait 10 days after my due date to get induced, and they acted like they were being nice. My baby was almost 10LBS! Id be PISSED if I had to carry her another 4 months. I was mad at the extra 10 days. We would be like elephants carrying our babies for over a year. My daughter was 11 months old before she was really walking- her large size was blamed by the doctors. So I would have gestated her for 2 years and she would be like 40 lbs! LOLZ

There was an interesting study published in Nature last year about women's spines, pregnancy, and postural adjustments to the difficulty of two-legged pregnancies:

In addition to being able to curve the spine more during pregnancy, the joints in the vertebrae of women are relatively larger than in men and flare out further down the spine, which improves the strength of the lower spine allowing women to lean back further. Lisa Shapiro, an anthropologist at the University of Texas at Austin, said female chimpanzees do not show this adaptation while the spine of a female Australopithecus a two-million-year-old primate which walked on its feet and had human characteristics does show the change. "Natural selection favoured this adaptation because it reduces extra stress on a pregnant female's spine," Dr Shapiro said.

"Without the adaptation, pregnancy would have placed a heavier burden on back muscles, causing considerable pain and fatigue and possibly limiting foraging capacity and the ability to escape from predators," she said.

"Any mother can attest to the awkwardness of standing and walking while balancing pregnancy weight in front of the body. Yet our research shows their spines have evolved to make pregnancy safer and less painful than it might have been if these adaptations had not occurred."

Article

I wonder if this is one of the reasons that we don't carry our babies until they are more independent – it could be a kind of compromise between the needs of the developing fetus to stay in the most protected environment possible for as long as possible, and the species' relatively new adoption of two-leggedness.

Interesting article anyway

Originally posted by AccessDenied
The average baby starts to walk between 10-14 months of age.
That's literally a 4 month stretch.

Ummm, that's a 14 month stretch (typo?), plus the initial nine. -- So, 23 months, anyone? Unless the baby started to walk at 3-4 months, which is impossible. Ugh. I was ready to deliver at 8 months. Forget 23. Blech.

Yikes!!

BTW my kids walked at 8 and 10 months, respectively.

[edit on 17-11-2008 by OuttaHere]