io9
Reader Karen asks:
One of my favourite sci-fi conceits in the Vorkosigan works of Lois McMaster Bujold is the uterine replicator. Sticking a fetus in a regulated jar until it's come full term and I can get my new baby boy, girl or hermaphrodite without all the vomiting, constant peeing, strenuous pushing, pooping on the operating table, and possible endangerment to life, reproductive organs and blood sugar levels sounds like fucking bliss. When can you get that to me?Given the risk - and many months of what can charitably be termed "inconvenience" - what are the alternatives to signing up for nine months of incubator duty? Let's find out.
The design (and I use the term very loosely) of the female reproductive system leaves a lot to be desired. Having a baby has been a dangerous proposition for most of human history. Historically one out of every hundred births resulted in the death of the mother. Modern health care can reduce that mortality ratio to nearly 1 out of every 10,000 births, but it is not (and never will be) entirely safe.
While our large craniums and upright posture have their advantages, they make traveling the birth canal an ordeal. If you don't believe me, compare the size of the infant cranium (black rectangle) to the pelvic inlet (white rectangles) for humans and a few of our primate cousins.
This is why they call it "labor".
The geometry does more to engender sympathy than confidence. Artificial wombs have appeared variously in science fiction, from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World to Star Wars and The Matrix.
Adorable and energy-effective!
The Force may have a strong effect on the weak minded, but good luck trying to convince a few million surrogate mothers that bringing a Stormtrooper to term would be a joy.
These are not the wombs you're looking for.
Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, on the other hand, tend more towards "natural" births, though the mother's body has been extensively bioengineered for safety and choice. Culture citizens have conscious control over their own fertility, and can store a fertilized egg in stasis for years - their pregnancies have a snooze button.
Whether you'd prefer a new and improved reproductive system installed as a replacement for your own or external to yourself (say, next to the washing machine), there are a few recent advancements bringing it a step closer to reality. An emulsified liquid blood substitute called perflubron has had some success used as a replacement for amniotic fluid for premature babies in respiratory distress. It's not a complete replacement for the complex stew of hormones, lipids, and proteins normally present in the amniotic fluid, it is at least a promising way to get oxygen into developing lungs.
Believe me, the mouse is as surprised as you are.
Even if we had a tank filled with a healthy, fully-functional amniotic replacement, we'd need an organ to make use of it. Researchers at Cornell University's Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility have built primitive tissue engineered uteruses using cells donated by infertile patients. Human embryos (left over from in vitro fertilizations) successfully implanted upon these multilayered constructs and gestated for 10 days. After that the experiments were ended - full-term experiments with mice have had very mixed results, but even being able to implant upon such a device is a serious achievement.
Once these engineered uteruses are perfected, we'll presumably have the option of surgically implanting them. Uterus transplants in animals as large as ewes have demonstrated that they can, at least, be removed and re-implanted without loss of function. Attempts to do the same in humans have thus far failed, but we haven't stopped trying.
Combine a fully-functioning uterus with a setup like Tokyo's Juntendo University's and instead of transplantation you could achieve ectogenesis - fetal development outside of the human body. Their bioreactor could bring goats to term (not always successfully) by pumping in nutrients and removing waste. Of course, the goats still needed to do most of their developing in a natural womb, but combine this apparatus with a uterus engineered from your own tissue, and maybe you'd have initial implantation and the tail-end of pregnancy covered.
As surprising and weird as this all is, we're still many decades away from a safe, human uterine replicator that can bring an embryo from conception to zeroeth birthday party. Even once we've sorted out the technical aspects of the womb itself, we'll have to deal with what the rest of the mother's body contributes to development. Hormones have already been mentioned, but baby also borrows mommy's disease-fighting machinery. Our replicator will require nearly complete endocrine and immune systems, too.
All in all, I'd take a serious look at adoption.
Terry Johnson is a biology researcher at UC Berkeley and io9's resident biogeek. If you have a question you'd like Terry to answer, email him at: tdj@io9.com.
Comments
then adoption it is!
Something like this would be pretty handy because then if you got a crappy baby, you wouldn't feel so bad about throwing it away and starting a new one.
This is where stem Cell research and cloning comes in: clone an external reproductive system form your own stem cells and then artificially inseminate a baby in it. Sort of like the vat grown meat discussed previously.
@moff:
And according to Swift, those cast off babies make a tasty snack!
@Gyrus & Belabras: We're all more or less on the same page here.
@Belabras:
"The Other White Veal"
-Kle.
@Gyrus: Then come the external reproductive system fetishes. Why artificially inseminate when you can naturally inseminate?
Would it be possible for a male to clone a female reproductive system from his own DNA?
@moff: @Belabras: @Gyrus:
You people are either very sick or very hungry
or a little of both..
Soylent baby... we don't even bother to cover it up, and pass the savings on to you..
@DocGratis: You truly are what you eat.
Phase-1 in our evolution toward giant-headed brainiods. Humans will have telepathy within ten generations!
Then everyone will kill everyone they know for having such horrible thoughts...
Sounds like "Forbidden Planet". The ultimate sci-fi film...
On the upside, once we get all this figured out, bioreactors don't drink alcohol, do drugs, have weird diseases, etc. We'll be able to remove all the donwsides of having natural mothers.
I bet though we'll have to do something to the intended mother (like give her a shot) to trigger all the "I'm a Mommy now" systems, like breastmilk and mother's love.
@russdanger: "Then everyone will kill everyone they know for having such horrible thoughts..."
More like, "Then we'll all realize just how perverted everyone is (even the Pope!) and we'll finally be able to leave any remnants of the Puritan ethos in history books."
@Gyrus: that sounds like a pretty decent idea
@russdanger:
To which I direct you here:
[www.dresdencodak.com]
I hope that when they make these you can actually see the baby -how interesting would it be to watch her actually grow! What a conversation piece. :)
@eris404: Baby GroBags!
@moff: You know, I don't think I have a problem with that now. If the Spartans could do it, why can't I?
You guys are killing me. Especially moff w/ the "crappy baby" line. Good stuff.
Anyway, I'm actually about 6 months along in pregnancy myself. Never had sickness issues, so to me pregnancy is all cool w/ me until...shortly after now, when I feel like I'm as big as a whale, as awkward and ungraceful as ever.
And honestly, labor/childbirth was a breeze for me with my first child. Maybe this next time will be different, who knows. Viva la epidural.
I would, however, consider porting the female fetus inside me to a jar just so I could take some decent allergy medicine. :)
@taxbaby: Just make sure you and your significant other are on the same page first. I didn't, and Christ, did I ever hear about it for the next week.
@apronk: Just remember: It's cool when you're glowing, but not cool when you're glowing green.
I wonder what Shulamith Firestone has to say about this.
I just look forward to the impact this technology will have on the reproductive "rights" debate, especially if a naturally conceived fetus can be harmlessly (both to fetus and mother) transferred from the womb to the UR. Soooo much potential for amusement:-)
@Brock: Mother's love shouldn't need a shot. Else adoptive parents would be less successful. Breastmilk would need a shot (assuming that the tech for artificial milk wouldn't be in place), but that's not too hard. There are cases of women who were not pregnant starting to lactate just because they spent a lot of time around pregnant women. It's the same sort of phenomenon as the tendency of women who live together to synchronize cycles.
For that matter, how about shots for the daddies so that they, too, can experience the bonding of feeding?
@Smeagol92055:
BwaAH-ha-ha!
I was glad to see Muad D'ib in there...Even if he was the dreaded David Lynch version...
@Brock:
Planet of the Big-Brained Bonobos
Normally things like this would give me creepy images of the Matrix and A Brave New World but the only thoughts that come to mind are about my daughter's premature birth. How instead of watching small little babies be whisked away to never come back while mine lay in the box right next to where they were covered in tubes and wires all those babies could wrapped up an environment so much closer to the one they need and instead grow to full term. It's not a perfect solution and who knows how well it would go but just the thought of no other parent suffer the fear and heartache of having a premature baby makes me cross my fingers.
I don't however find anything comforting about mothers doing that instead of actually being pregnant. We have yet to make anything that is as beneficial as what the human body can do (as far as I'm aware) and I think the risks would outweigh the benefits when the mother is able to have a healthy pregnancy, especially since the first trimester is such a vital development point.
So that's my two cents.
re: the birth canal/cranium problem. Solution: GenEngineer long, tapered skulls.
@eris404: That would be fun. You could get a little toy castle or a treasure chest to put at the bottom of the tank. It would be best to keep it out of direct sunlight or you might get algae problems. I suppose you could throw in some snails or a pleco--baby's first pet! awwwww.
@Grey_Area:
I always keep a few blanks growing in the lab; you never know when you'll need to be reanimated with a back-up. I'm thinking that custom body-shop using these baby-pods has a lot of potential, a real growth industry. Seriously, I'd love to look forward to a new body, because the one I'm in is a pain.
@Jeff-Minor: You use organic avatars? Tack-Eee! But hey, whatever floats your GCU.
Call me a traditionalist but I'm currently running a dozen slaved drones in the shape of lawn flamingoes--gunmetal grey, of course. With frikkin' laser beams strapped to their heads.
"compare the size of the infant cranium (black rectangle) to the pelvic inlet (white rectangles) for humans and a few of our primate cousins" - I am so dumb, I actually though the birth canal and the babies' heads were ROUND! So funny, I crack myself up!
Jadedusoliel says, "I don't however find anything comforting about mothers doing that instead of actually being pregnant."
Well get ready for disappointment. I'm betting a lot of women and men will use these once the technology is there and relatively cheap.
Bioconservatives will resist and try to prevent others from using artificial wombs but I'm betting they'll only slow down the widespread use of the technology a few jots.
Tsk tsk. No mention of the placenta. You have no idea what the placenta does.
@ndgmtlcd: Actually, in the Bujold books, the placenta is included in the uterine replicator.
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