Biobags: welcome, infant overlords

June 29, 2017 10:28 AM

It's possible with lambs. Are people next? Where will science and bioethics take us in the near future?
posted by OneSmartMonkey (19 comments total)

There are certainly beneficial applications of fetal development tanks, but this also completely removes the necessity of any parental involvement in the process of, uh, farming humans. So we can expect lots of nefarious applications to take place in secrecy.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:36 AM on June 29, 2017

There's an excellent chapter of Franken Fran that explores basically this concept. As usual with Franken Fran, the unintended consequences of playing God with the human body are pretty gross...
posted by J.K. Seazer at 11:24 AM on June 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

I can't stop thinking about what the other siblings would get up to, if they were ever left unsupervised with the baby tank.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 11:26 AM on June 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

There are certainly beneficial applications of fetal development tanks, but this also completely removes the necessity of any parental involvement in the process of, uh, farming humans.

I imagine with the moral ambiguity sufficient up for farming humans would recognize that (at least for the near future) other humans are still a far cheaper alternative.

It's a good sign for the offworld colonies, though. We just need to get the cryosleep down.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:37 AM on June 29, 2017

other humans are still a far cheaper alternative

Other humans need to be fed, sheltered, kept quiet, etc. And that is, on average, one host per, what, 1.2 kids? Definitely not cheaper.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:41 AM on June 29, 2017

If men carried children, this technology would have been sorted sometime around the invention of the telephone. If not already in existence, The Manhattan Project would have been tasked to solve the problem before the A-bomb.

Babies would be gestated in glass jars in a corner of the nursery. Decanting day would involve having a party, drunken idiots all getting a chance to pinata the glass womb and "deliver" the baby. After delivery steaks would be grilled and many toasts made. Oh, and robo-nursers and auto diaper changers would also be a thing.
posted by Keith Talent at 11:50 AM on June 29, 2017 [8 favorites]

I do some work in a NICU. While I understand the CHOP biobag brings up images of farming humans Matrix-style, the thing is, it wouldn't be able to support premature infants younger than 22-23 weeks gestation -- which is just about exactly the gestational age of the earliest preemies we are currently able to resuscitate and care for outside the womb.

In other words, this technology can't replace the mother's body during conception and early pregnancy any more than current NICU care does. What it could do is replace current NICU care. Especially and most importantly the respiratory support that extremely premature babies need. Lungs are the least developed part of a premature baby, aside from the brain, and keeping a preemie alive involves highly invasive ventilation including a breathing tube down the throat. Unfortunately the pressures that are necessary to bring air in and out of those tiny, fragile lungs are quite high, and this very very commonly leads to lifelong lung and heart problems (if the child survives to term, which many do not because of said lung and heart problems as well as gut and brain problems resulting from those).

In the womb, of course, you don't need high pressures in your lungs because you don't need air in your lungs because oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange happens at the placenta. That's what this biobag does. This technology really should be thought of as a form of intensive care therapy and not as a stepping stone toward artificial reproduction.
posted by saturday_morning at 11:51 AM on June 29, 2017 [55 favorites]

We live in a world where repressive regimes feeding people to electronics factories and militias murder parents and brutalise children until they're child soldiers. You don't need to operate a people farm to treat as many people as you like however you like. You just need guns and evil.
posted by howfar at 11:52 AM on June 29, 2017

I'm not ready for our Momcorp overlords.
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 12:32 PM on June 29, 2017

Another day, another headline that used to be the plot of an old Max Headroom episode.
posted by radwolf76 at 12:40 PM on June 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm hoping this can help mothers who develop preeclampsia and other conditions where extending the pregnancy can be dangerous to mother and child. As noted above this we're not at Baby Gro-bags just yet.
posted by phooky at 12:55 PM on June 29, 2017 [2 favorites]

Aw man, baby grow bags sound awesome and completely revolutionary to me, in the way that contraceptives were revolutionary. Sure, capitalism ruins everything it touches but on the other hand, freeing women from the dangerous effects of pregnancy seems worth it to me. (Yes, I know the current technology is only for premature babies, which is a good thing in its own right).
posted by muddgirl at 1:17 PM on June 29, 2017 [2 favorites]

(OK, instead of Baby Grow Bags, we can take a page from Lois McMaster Bujold and call them uterine replicators.)
posted by muddgirl at 1:20 PM on June 29, 2017 [9 favorites]

Other humans need to be fed, sheltered, kept quiet, etc. And that is, on average, one host per, what, 1.2 kids? Definitely not cheaper.

Same could be said about farm animals, right?
posted by leotrotsky at 1:30 PM on June 29, 2017

O brave new world, that has such people in't

I work with NICU babies on a daily basis, and this whole idea is not even wrong. I think this stems in large part from the fact that this is apparently a design exercise by students and there was no input by medical professionals that I could detect. Lack of sterility, access to the umbilical vessels to supply nutrition and oxygen while removing carbon dioxide and other waste products, how to maintain fetal circulation are not addressed at all. Perhaps even more significant is that the lamb article dealt with premature lambs, not lambs that were in the bag from conception. So someone would still have to carry a human fetus in utero until they were ready for what is really just an advanced incubator. Lots of potential for taking care of extremely premature infants, but not an artificial surrogate womb.

Still makes more sense than a head transplant, though.
posted by TedW at 1:56 PM on June 29, 2017 [3 favorites]

I distinctly remember reading a lot of books when I was pregnant that told me we still don't really know why a given woman's contractions start or don't; we often have no idea why a given fetus miscarries. Don't even get me started on the paucity of pain relief options that don't send your risks of surgery soaring.

I'm sure strides are being made, but there's nothing like going through a pregnancy in the 21st century to remind you that when it comes to gestation and birth, we're just barely out of the 19th.

I strongly feel that women-specific medicine in general is decades behind where it should be, for reasons that rhyme with "schmexism."

So anyway, actually growing a baby outside the womb, we're gonna have to do some catching up before we can get there.
posted by emjaybee at 2:26 PM on June 29, 2017 [3 favorites]

Even though this isn't even describing artificial wombs yet, Metafilter has the expected reaction to any technological development.

To paraphrase Darren MacLennan:

"I think that it shows off the best thing about Metafilter: Its ability to look into the future, see what's coming, shriek like a startled baboon, dump a load into its pants and flee into the peace and safety of a new dark age"
posted by happyroach at 3:09 PM on June 29, 2017 [5 favorites]

" the thing is, it wouldn't be able to support premature infants younger than 22-23 weeks gestation -- which is just about exactly the gestational age of the earliest preemies we are currently able to resuscitate and care for outside the womb."

Yeah, a friend of mine delivered a 24-weeker and mom was in a coma for over a week. Baby spent close to 20 weeks in the NICU. The outcomes for both were good, but an artificial womb that could have supported him growing further would have been a LOT BETTER than an incubator and kangaroo care.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:00 PM on June 29, 2017 [3 favorites]

My wife and I lost a daughter at 20 weeks gestation.

I know a family who delivered a baby girl at 25 weeks gestation. The resulting hypertension meant she never left the hospital and died at 18 months old.

These bags could completely change the outcomes for thousands of families who lose children to premature birth every year and radically improve the outcomes of thousands more children who survive but deal with lifelong medical complications.

TL/DR: not the sign of a dystopian future but rather a potential release from horrible reality.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 4:42 AM on June 30, 2017 [7 favorites]