is the future of having children outside the womb .... the future?

Andy From Sligo

I was reading a couple of months back some kind of article where they predicted in the future that it could be possible to grow a baby outside of a womb , in an incubator kind of thing and I thought it sounded a little bit like a crackpot idea until i had more think about it, and i can sort of like see the benefits myself:

The mother could carry on drinking and smoking without no harm to her unborn child, no morning sickness, the mother could if they wish work all the way right up to the end of the 'birth', no risks from high blood pressure, no risk of loosing the baby for people with medical reasons where they have miscarriages, no overdue or premature babies, no c-sections.

there are most probably loads more 'advantages' to it. - I dont know how the mother would bond to the baby if they had not been carrying around for 9 months but most probably the same way the father bonds to the baby .

it would be strange in the future if people started saying "do you remember if you were pregnant years ago and you had to carry the baby inside you for 9 months, it seems alien now!"

Dial Hard

I think maybe you should step away from the internet for a while...

Andy From Sligo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121241646#Comment_121241646

and what? - read a paper or watch the tv news instead? - because i do believe originally it was an article on the internet taken from a newspaper or tv news about it.

same news but it was just transmitted in a different way.

Dial Hard

Read a book. Go for a walk. Visit a museum or art gallery. Listen to some music. Cook or bake something.

the_amazing_raisin

Yeah some tech bro usually dreams up this idea every few years, usually while high on drugs

The premise goes something like we can grow single celled organisms easily enough, ergo we can grow a human in a test tube

The issues arise when you get into the practicalities of it. For one thing, you'd need some way to manufacture human blood to supply the foetus

Unless you're planning to hook a woman up to a constant blood transfusion system, in which case what's the point?

The biggest problem though is that growing humans in test tubes is a solution without a problem

We already have a good way to produce more humans, it's worked for thousands of years and has generally proven quite popular

Also, who's going to pay for this system? If you look at the costs of IVF or other fertility treatments and think about how costly growing a baby in an incubator would be, it's pretty clear that only the very wealthy would be able to afford it

So essentially you've come up with the first season of Altered Carbon with some of Brave New World thrown in

banie01

Next thing ya know the Bene Tleilax will be wheeling the aloxotl tanks out.

Then someone else will buy a 2nd hand one that hasn't been PAT tested, and what then!?!

Surely we must clamp down in the danger of 2nd hand wombs now, before they become a problem 😉

dxhound2005

It is all for the best motives as Andy says. So that women can keep drinking and smoking.

nachouser

The op is the lad who started a thread about not getting a free drink cos he finished the one he paid for before finishing his chicken fillet roll. In a spar or a garage or whatever. It was his best moment on here. Wonderful thread.

Andy From Sligo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121243016#Comment_121243016

centuries ago - i have matured since then 😁

nachouser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121243066#Comment_121243066

You should revive it.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121243066#Comment_121243066

Andy, please don't mature any more. This is After Hours, and your threads are gold.

cj maxx

Have so called test tube babbies not been done before ? Or is this this about growing a full foetus till babyhood?

Andy From Sligo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121243616#Comment_121243616

well this time its more artificial wombs kind of thing for the future, thats what scientists are looking into and experimenting on:

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0bmqfk9/what-if-women-never-had-to-give-birth-again-

El_Duderino 09

Without pretending to know anything about the article because it wasn't linked and I haven't seen it, maybe it would be good for some people.

Some women can't successfully carry a child. They end up with devastating miscarriages and so on. So it could be used as a kind of surrogacy.

Plus, trigger warning, trans women in a couple with a cis man could find it interesting.

ghostfacekilla

I think we're a step nearer with the Ukrainian surrogacy farms for the lush starbucks mummies who are in addition to being too posh to push, but to posh to carry.

witchgirl26

This sounds like the exact plot from a show that I think is on Apple TV called something like the Pod Generation. Basically babies are grown in pods outside the body & you can carry them around if you want or you can leave them to gestate in a facility.

Look the theory is interesting if it was to be used for people who struggle to maintain a pregnancy (as opposed to those who struggle to get pregnant) but I think we're a long way off it at the moment. And I think the defacto will always be the natural way of baby growing in the womb.

Andy From Sligo

it would mean you could protect the unborn baby i suppose , i mean say if the mother does drugs or is an alcoholic , not only harming herself but her unborn child , then there could well be a case for something like this

Leg End Reject

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121243683#Comment_121243683

What about using recycled washing machines as a replacement womb? You could use a larger capacity drum for twins, triplets, quadruples etc.

That would solve your 2 most pressing concerns. 😂

thinkabouit

Hope not, way too much fun making babies

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121242375#Comment_121242375

Are you saying this as a guess at what might happen or telling us you saw in a vision that this will happen.

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121245863#Comment_121245863

Seems like the logical next step would be to use a washer dryer so the baby comes out dry.

Andy From Sligo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121245863#Comment_121245863

they might catch alight ....

Andy From Sligo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121245873#Comment_121245873

make babies the normal way then ... and then extract the fetus and finish it off in an artificial womb pod .... gas mark5 for 9months 😁

Andy From Sligo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121245940#Comment_121245940

that will be the future - baby will soil its nappy and you will just sit the baby in a washer dryer and go "do you remember back in the day when we had to change the babbies nappy's - its so much easier now"

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121246036#Comment_121246036

Yeah... it's actually possible to extract and preserve an embryo very early on in the pregnancy, but once it's implanted and is receiving blood from the mother it's basically impossible without aborting the foetus

Given a lot of women don't realise they're pregnant until well after implantation, it's already a non runner

Again, it's a solution without a problem. What exactly is being solved by an artificial womb?

Women want to drink, smoke and take drugs during pregnancy? Well people probably shouldn't be doing that anyway, so pregnancy seems like a fantastic opportunity to kick the habit. Perhaps a couple's focused program to get the father to also cut down on their negative habits would be good as well

For woman who have trouble conceiving, or couples who are short on ovaries then surrogacy seems a far better approach. Reforming surrogacy and adoption laws would probably have more positive outcomes

As for the demographic crisis, typically this is linked to overpriced housing and the costs of having children, both direct costs of childcare and indirect costs because one parent having to put their career on hold to some extent. So affordable housing, childcare and better parental leave laws would help solve that issue

Once again the high tech solution has been defeated by sitting down and thinking about the problems for 5 mins 😉

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058318261/is-the-future-of-having-children-outside-the-womb-the-future

I made a thread on this a few years ago. Wasn't a hit.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058188982/cloudbirths