To think gestation outside the body is a fab idea

[Allotmentblackfly]

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?

Research makes the possibility possible?

Horrific.

Brave New World? Why not go the whole hog.

It is impossible and always will be.

I wonder about OPs motives in suggesting it might happen.

Men and patriarchal society would rather spend on this than just simply give long standing healthy and economical benefits to adult human women.

Life is a fucking joke.

This would be great for premature babies

Absolutely dystopian

Jesus fucking christ.

There is so much about the subconscious nature of pregnancy and birth that we don't understand, particularly around hormones, phycology and attachment that I can't help but think this is a horrendous idea

Sounds expensive. Poor women are cheap to exploit.

i am middle aged. Since I was little I’ve heard about the ways technology will replace humans. In the cases it has, it’s because the robots/tech has been cheaper and better than using a person. In the cases it’s never made it from “tomorrow’s world” to mass production, it’s because it’s just cheaper to use poor people.

I’m skeptical because just as technology starts to perhaps catch up to being able to physically maintain the growth of the foetus outside the body, we are also just starting to be aware of the huge role that the specific growth environment and epigenetics plays in pregnancy. So the goalposts have now moved and are still very very far away.

Have you read A Brave New World?

Really disturbing. From where, what and how would the gestating babies receive nutrition, antibodies, emotional connection that the pregnant mother supplies?

Babies come out knowing mum is safe, their smell, their voice etc I think we should at least give them that 🙄 really can't imagine one day going to collect a baby that's been grown for you 😬

I think we don't realise how much a baby would miss out on. It's now we were supposed to be made and born. Of there is no reason to then no, bad idea.

For all those of you blaming patriarchy…Many decades ago when I was at uni a radical feminist called Shulamith Firestone was suggesting women could be released from the burden of childbirth through developments like this!

Whoever has had the idea/made it possible is morally bankrupt. Whole things sounds dreadful!

That's true. Can we please spend some of this money on improving maternity care for women before messing around with these horrible sci-fi ideas?

preemies yes, if they could be gestated until full term with less complications than a NICU stay.
For all babies? No, it’s a horrible way of monetising babies and further eroding women and our rights. Nevermind the antibodies, tailored nutrition, bonding/attachment and development. The huge amount of needless medical intervention both mother and baby would need when there is a perfectly natural, established method already there.

https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-have-successfully-grown-premature-lambs-in-an-artificial-womb

It won't be too long now. These sheep were premature, but I would imagine it would be possible to do it from conception in the relatively near future.

What recent research?

please back up your claim.

”recent research” i.e. Adrianna Smith has shown gestating inside a deceased body is not physiologically stable for a foetus, so how do they plan to do it without a body at all?

Quite. I cant find any recent news on this

No.

supporting the last few months of gestation outside the womb, where the foetus is only growing and getting bigger, is very different from conception.

there is a very complicated hormone system which controls growth and development in the first weeks/months. Without that turning a single cell into a functioning mammal is extremely difficult. Impossible, I’d say.

again, Adrianna Smith. And her baby was 9 weeks when she died so at least had those first weeks of normal development.

we know it is possible to keep a woman on life support for the final weeks. Adrianna Smith was an experiment to see if it could be done. I can’t much about the health of the baby unsurprisingly, but from what the family have said (hydrocephalus, amongst other issues, and only just over 1.5lbs at birth) he is likely to have severe ongoing issues.

one more time, Adrianna Smith.

Just awful

Awful.

Artificial wombs aren’t just a medical innovation. In Japan, they’re a potential social solution…a way to support working parents, mitigate maternal health challenges, and even change how society views gender roles in parenting.
It’s no accident this happened there first.

www.michelegargiulo.com/blog/japan-artificial-womb-embryos-outside-body

That's what commissioning parents do after the surrogate mother has given birth.