Artificial wombs may soon offer a nurturing alternative for the most vulnerable premature babies.
The journey from pregnancy to motherhood is anything but easy. In the United States, around 6% of married women experience difficulties conceiving after a year of trying, with another 14% facing challenges in carrying a pregnancy to full term. The World Health Organization (WHO) reveals that in 2020 alone, 13.4 million babies were born preterm, and preterm birth complications are the leading cause of death in children under five years of age, accounting for roughly 900,000 deaths in 2019. Furthermore, over 300,000 women die annually from pregnancy or childbirth complications.
Among the latest innovations in medical science, one might be offering hope and a solution to these age-old challenges—enter artificial womb technology.
What is an artificial womb?
Artificial womb technology aims to offer a nurturing alternative for the most vulnerable premature babies. It simulates the conditions of a natural womb, potentially providing a lifestyle choice for women and opening new paths to parenthood for LGBTQ individuals.
(Source: Lisa Mandemaker’s Instagram)
One such project making strides is led by Maxima Medical Centre (MMC) in the Netherlands and speculative designer Lisa Mandemaker. Mandemaker’s design, as she detailed in an interview with the BBC, includes balloons acting as artificial wombs, where babies are immersed in a fluid that mimics their natural prenatal environment. These are connected to tubes that supply the baby with necessary nutrients and oxygen, akin to a mother’s placenta. This setup aims to let premature babies develop safely until they’re ready for the world outside.
Once a baby is born prematurely, it will be seamlessly transitioned into the artificial womb. The baby will then be connected to an artificial placenta that supplies oxygen and nutrients, just like in the natural gestational environment. After sufficient development, the infant is gently transitioned out of the artificial womb, ready to start life in the outside world.
The concept isn’t new. In 2017, researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) conducted successful experiments with premature lambs in artificial wombs called “biobags”. The lambs were observed to have normal growth and organ development, showcasing the technology’s potential to support life-saving alternatives in reproductive medicine.
Source: NBC News/Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
The promise of artificial womb technology
Dr. Guid Oei, a gynecologist at MMC, believes that artificial wombs could offer a safer, more controlled environment for fetal development than traditional incubators, which can harm extremely preterm babies’ lungs with their air-based environment. Artificial wombs, by replicating amniotic fluid conditions, could theoretically improve survival rates and health outcomes for these babies.
Beyond its medical applications, artificial womb technology also represents a profound shift in how society approaches conception, pregnancy and the early stages of life, making it a topic of both excitement and ethical debate.
A potential solution to infertility and decreasing birth rate?
While the primary focus of artificial womb technology is to provide critical support for premature babies, some are envisioning a much bolder future—ectogenesis, the development of babies from conception to birth in an artificial setting. A molecular biologist, science communicator and filmmaker in Berlin, Hashem Al-Ghaili, is one of them.
In 2022, Al-Ghaili released a concept video on YouTube of an artificial womb facility called “EctoLife”. It portrays a futuristic lab with the capacity to nurture 30,000 lab-grown babies annually. The video illustrates an animated facility reminiscent of a stadium, filled with rows of AI-enhanced growth pods. Each pod cradles an IVF-created baby in a liquid environment, meticulously monitoring its development and screening for genetic markers.
Parents could engage in interactive experiences like selecting music or feeling simulated kicks via a smartphone app and haptic suit. EctoLife even proposes an “Elite Package” to enable genetic customization of traits like eye color, skin tone and intelligence before implantation as well as a home-based baby incubation option.
EctoLife ambitiously aims to render C-sections and the risks of premature births “a thing of the past”, providing new hope for infertile couples and those medically unable to conceive. It also positions itself as a strategic response to declining birth rates globally.
Sounds dystopian and far-fetched? Well, for now, it’s just a concept conceived by Al-Ghaili but not a real-life project. Researchers even described ectogenesis as “a technically and developmentally naive, yet sensationally speculative, pipe dream”. However, it does shed light on many issues our world is facing today: decreasing birth rates, growing infertility rates and dwindling desire to have kids. As reproductive technology like artificial wombs continues to advance, it might be the time to reimagine the boundaries of what’s possible in the realm of family creation and neonatal care.
Navigating ethical and regulatory challenges
With great potential comes significant ethical considerations. Questions arise about its impact on a baby’s physical development and the psychological effects on both the child and biological parents, particularly in terms of bonding. The technology challenges traditional views of parenthood and pregnancy and intersects with issues of women’s rights, abortion legislation and healthcare equality.
In September 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) advisory committee discussed the human trials of artificial wombs, focusing on the necessary data, regulatory frameworks and ethical considerations. This marked a significant step toward addressing the complex scientific, technical and ethical challenges that artificial womb technology must navigate before becoming a viable medical option.
Currently, artificial womb technology remains in the realm of experimentation. However, the intense interest and ongoing debates within scientific and ethical circles are evident in the technology’s transformative potential for reproductive medicine and human development.
Header Image from Pixabay
