Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think gestation outside the body is a fab idea

184 replies

Allotmentblackfly · 23/06/2025 18:47

Recent research makes the possibility of gestating a baby outside a woman’s body possible. Do we think this is a good idea or not?

OP posts:
TooManyAnimals94 · 23/06/2025 21:20

Are you a doctor OP because I find your language quite disturbing.
I long for a time when vaginal birth isn't necessary?? Sounds like wishing women weren't necessary!

So many NECESSARY things happens when you give birth (whether vaginally or c section) including the release of essential hormones, the baby recognising where to get milk by the smell of amniotic fluid being the same as the mothers areola and all the things other posters have mentioned that go on whilst the baby is in the womb.

Eeewww icky lady parts...wouldn't it be so much better if we just hatched nice clean, healthy perfect babies from eggs.

Frankenstein was written as a critique on men's fear of women's bodies and their secret desire to be rid of them. Shelley was clearly on to something.

Hedonism · 23/06/2025 21:19

Allotmentblackfly · 23/06/2025 20:31

Interesting! Most people think its an awful idea.
Having hated with a passion obs and gynae in my training - too much blood/ too much emotion/ lots of unnecessary screaming, I always said to my husband that I looked forward to the time when vaginal birth was unnecessary.
Advantages

  1. more equal expectations of parenting from both mother and father. Father is not 'excluded' by not being the gestator
  2. Easier to see when fetus is struggling and able to provide timely intervention
  3. Great if not able to carry baby yourself - womb problems etc
  4. No need for surrogacy.
  5. Baby can be exposed to recordings of mum and dad's voice and womb sounds.
  6. no smashed pelvic floors, cesearean sections, pain in childbirth etc.
:)

Jesus Christ.

PickAChew · 23/06/2025 21:12

Allotmentblackfly · 23/06/2025 20:31

Interesting! Most people think its an awful idea.
Having hated with a passion obs and gynae in my training - too much blood/ too much emotion/ lots of unnecessary screaming, I always said to my husband that I looked forward to the time when vaginal birth was unnecessary.
Advantages

  1. more equal expectations of parenting from both mother and father. Father is not 'excluded' by not being the gestator
  2. Easier to see when fetus is struggling and able to provide timely intervention
  3. Great if not able to carry baby yourself - womb problems etc
  4. No need for surrogacy.
  5. Baby can be exposed to recordings of mum and dad's voice and womb sounds.
  6. no smashed pelvic floors, cesearean sections, pain in childbirth etc.
:)

So your first point is putting men first. Righty-ho.

Beesareourdfriends · 23/06/2025 21:08

Yes for premature babies. No for anything else . There is no need . We have female people ( women ) who can do the job well most of the time. Experimenting unnecessarily on premature babies is disgustingly and abhorrent .

Pateallday · 23/06/2025 21:01

I wouldn't call it fab, too many unknowns and potential issues, though I can see it being useful for premature babies or where the mother has an urgent health issue and treatment would compromise the babies health.

SeriouslyStressed · 23/06/2025 20:58

Newborn babies show a preference for not just their mothers voice, but their mothers language. They feel safe with their mother when they are born as there is a strong sense of familiarity

Outrageistheopiateofthemasses · 23/06/2025 20:49

Not everyone has all those though. I loved, loved, loved being pregnant. I would have been sad to not experience that. For the reasons you listed, I went for an elective section and was absolutely fine

Humanity is full of awful people who would do awful things and this is a terrible idea. It should only be used to protect the growth of a prem baby. Not to convince trans women that they are real mothers or allow people with no emotional attachment to a child to produce them en masse for nefarious reasons.

Riceball · 23/06/2025 20:45

MsCactus · 23/06/2025 19:21

This would be great for premature babies

Yes- an incubator is about as close as they are going to get to inventing it too.

HornyHornersPinger · 23/06/2025 20:36

I'm a firm believer in the phrase "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should..."

Think it applies here.

Answeringaquestiontonight · 23/06/2025 20:34

Very Brave New World…

MrsTerryPratchett · 23/06/2025 20:33

Allotmentblackfly · 23/06/2025 20:31

Interesting! Most people think its an awful idea.
Having hated with a passion obs and gynae in my training - too much blood/ too much emotion/ lots of unnecessary screaming, I always said to my husband that I looked forward to the time when vaginal birth was unnecessary.
Advantages

  1. more equal expectations of parenting from both mother and father. Father is not 'excluded' by not being the gestator
  2. Easier to see when fetus is struggling and able to provide timely intervention
  3. Great if not able to carry baby yourself - womb problems etc
  4. No need for surrogacy.
  5. Baby can be exposed to recordings of mum and dad's voice and womb sounds.
  6. no smashed pelvic floors, cesearean sections, pain in childbirth etc.
:)

‘Lots of unnecessary screaming’? Do you struggle with empathy, generally? Because that may explain why you don't understand why babies need mothers to carry them.

Original poster
Allotmentblackfly · 23/06/2025 20:31

Interesting! Most people think its an awful idea.
Having hated with a passion obs and gynae in my training - too much blood/ too much emotion/ lots of unnecessary screaming, I always said to my husband that I looked forward to the time when vaginal birth was unnecessary.
Advantages

  1. more equal expectations of parenting from both mother and father. Father is not 'excluded' by not being the gestator
  2. Easier to see when fetus is struggling and able to provide timely intervention
  3. Great if not able to carry baby yourself - womb problems etc
  4. No need for surrogacy.
  5. Baby can be exposed to recordings of mum and dad's voice and womb sounds.
  6. no smashed pelvic floors, cesearean sections, pain in childbirth etc.
:)
OP posts:
unconditionalpurelove · 23/06/2025 20:16

No fucking way

stichguru · 23/06/2025 20:15

I would never ever support the idea of growing a child in a lab ever. However there are quite a number of child born with massive complications and potentially life long disabilities, either because they came out very premature and it couldn't be stopped, or because inducing labour or performing a c-section was the only way to save the child or the mother. While (as a disabled through prematurity myself) I am not saying that these children's lives aren't worth living as they are, but maybe they would have easier lives without those complications? Personally my cerebral palsy was due to a problem that wasn't picked up early enough to use an artificial womb. My friend though had been monitored for pre-eclampsia for some time before it got so bad they HAD to deliver her son at 26 weeks because mum and son would have died if they didn't. If a few weeks before that, rather then praying she'd not become dangerously ill before he was old enough to survive, they had been able to move him to an artificial womb, maybe they wouldn't both have had to fight for life, with him disabled as a result.

cheesycheesy · 23/06/2025 20:15

HagsRule · 23/06/2025 20:09

Just like surrogacy, where babies are bought and paid for and removed from their mothers, this is a hard hard no from me.

More risk of babies being born and taken by deviant/perverted men too.

Jerrypicker · 23/06/2025 20:15

Notyomama · 23/06/2025 19:08

Men really really need to do something about their envy of women.

😆😆
I doubt men envy pregnancy and childbirth and all the risks that come with it. Even women struggle with it.

FlipFlopShopInHawaii · 23/06/2025 20:13

Motomum23 · 23/06/2025 18:48

Unethical and abhorrent

👏 👏 👏 👏 👏

MrsTerryPratchett · 23/06/2025 20:12

What research?

Goody2ShoesAndTheFilthyBeast · 23/06/2025 20:11

Dreadful idea that would end very badly.

HagsRule · 23/06/2025 20:09

Just like surrogacy, where babies are bought and paid for and removed from their mothers, this is a hard hard no from me.

cheesycheesy · 23/06/2025 20:09

AndStand · 23/06/2025 20:08

Can men not leave anything just for women?
This smacks of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Dystopian stuff!

No it seems to they want to invade everything and how dare we be offended by this

AttachmentFTW · 23/06/2025 20:08

You need to read Brave New World if you want to have a sense of where artificial gestation would take society.

AndStand · 23/06/2025 20:08

Can men not leave anything just for women?
This smacks of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Dystopian stuff!

W0tnow · 23/06/2025 20:07

Yes. Experimenting on growing foetuses in order to deliver a live baby is a wonderful idea!

cheesycheesy · 23/06/2025 20:07

BankHolidayMonday · 23/06/2025 20:06

Another "just because we can, doesn't mean we should".

If only we could focus all the money and man power on research to help with actual medical problems that should have disappeared by now.

Yes like cancer and dementia. But yeah let’s concentrate on making babies artificially 🙄