The Childbirth Centrifuge

January 25, 2007 11:18 AM

The Childbirth Centrifuge You must be pregnant to ride this ride. Why push your baby out when you can spin the sucker out? This device probably makes one mean martini, too. Unlike many patent applications, the Apparatus for Facilitating the Birth of a Child by Centrifugal Force is described in great detail, making me wonder whether a prototype actually got constructed. Link goes to a summary. Click through for the completely confusing text of the patent.
posted by fleener (38 comments total)

Gah!
posted by koeselitz at 11:25 AM on January 25, 2007

I cannot think of a worse idea. If the baby isn't coming out, generally the correct solution isn't to push or pull harder. Unless you're trying to give birth to future test pilots or something. (insert 'Brave New World' reference here also).
posted by GuyZero at 11:25 AM on January 25, 2007

Why exactly would this be preferable to a Cesarian Section? Gah!
posted by nonreflectiveobject at 11:28 AM on January 25, 2007

I wonder if there's a related patent for sticking some pneumatic tubes in there and blowing the baby out from behind. What a bad idea!
posted by interrobang at 11:28 AM on January 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

This subjects the baby to negative 7 g's. Negative 2 g's is enough to cause redout. I'm not so sure that subjecting the baby to sustained negative g's on this scale is a good idea... I'd be concerned about it suffering from stress on the circulatory system... maybe even aneurysms or other damage. I definitely wouldn't allow it for any baby we'd have.
posted by calhound at 11:30 AM on January 25, 2007

Well, the centrifuge method is better in that it isn't major surgery.

That's a pretty big plus.
posted by oddman at 11:33 AM on January 25, 2007

Note that this patent application was filed in 1963, and granted in 1965. It's a little more believable that someone would actually think that this was a good idea if you consider that.
posted by amro at 11:34 AM on January 25, 2007

Uh, but also note that it was invented by a woman. Weird.
posted by amro at 11:35 AM on January 25, 2007

I don't even know what to say. Gah! indeed.
posted by cardamine at 11:36 AM on January 25, 2007

But, wait... the baby flies out and is caught in the safety net, like some kind of high wire acrobat. The mother is still spinning, even though the machine immediately begins to slow down. Wouldn't the child just be dragged out of the net and trailed behind the spinning machine by the umbilical cord?
posted by papakwanz at 11:39 AM on January 25, 2007

probably makes one mean martini, too.

Stirred, not shaken, baby...
posted by ZenMasterThis at 11:39 AM on January 25, 2007

I have a much better method. 100% fool proof.

Just show any woman my picture and say "Imagine having sex with this man."

100% sure to expel any object from your loins.
posted by tkchrist at 11:41 AM on January 25, 2007

Nifty how it's designed so that the mother's puke hits her own face rather than the surrounding hospital staff.
posted by amro at 11:42 AM on January 25, 2007

Note to self: never accept a martini offered by fleener.
posted by nowonmai at 11:42 AM on January 25, 2007

This made me giggle uncontrollably.
posted by mrbill at 11:44 AM on January 25, 2007

Finally, a use for The No-Spin Zone.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:45 AM on January 25, 2007

I had an idea like this, but my harness could be reconfiguredfor the woman to be swung by the ankles in order to delay premature childbirth.
posted by dr_dank at 11:55 AM on January 25, 2007

Maybe this solution can be applied to sperm donation. No more embarrassing jerking off into a cup! No more worry about not being able to get it up in a strange clinical environment. Just spin some poor mofo fast enought to yank the jiz right out of him.
posted by spicynuts at 12:15 PM on January 25, 2007

I remember there being a childbirth centrifuge in this wonderful book of wierd patents I had as a kid called 'Mousetraps and Muffling Cups'. You can see a few images from it here. If I recall correctly, the labor centrifuge in that book was much older, like early 1900s, so it's possible that this was the second patent granted for a labor centrifuge.

The one in the book was much less complex... just a table attached with a hinge to a spinning post at the top... had a little footrest to catch the kid.
posted by ulotrichous at 12:18 PM on January 25, 2007

I know delivery room nurses who actually keep score of doctors' "drops", so maybe the safety-net part of this has wider application?
posted by rokusan at 12:22 PM on January 25, 2007

This invention would be really cool if it was called the "Birthysphere".
posted by Mister_A at 12:22 PM on January 25, 2007

My suggestion is to fill a paper cone with pepper, blow it into the pregnant woman's nose, and then run across the room with a baseball mitt.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:22 PM on January 25, 2007 [2 favorites]

For those looking to save money, I can perform something similar on a playground for $100 using a merry-go-round and a series of large suction cups (failing that, a plunger). For $50, I'll do it with duct tape.

Operators are standing by.
posted by drezdn at 12:23 PM on January 25, 2007

I can't wait to send this to mrs. cake!
posted by papercake at 12:23 PM on January 25, 2007

fleener, you should have marked this one thusly:

(NSFW: Cone-shaped squiggly yellow boobies)
posted by Mister_A at 12:25 PM on January 25, 2007

I think some kids in Crawley are already working on a prototype.
posted by Flashman at 12:41 PM on January 25, 2007

This actually might have some (a little) merit in a zero-g environment.
posted by Monkey0nCrack at 1:24 PM on January 25, 2007

Jesus, I was going to send this to someone I know whose baby is imminent.

But if it creeped me out...
posted by Merlyn at 1:42 PM on January 25, 2007

This was a real contraption used in the late 1950's! It was discontinued after adverse reactions in the kids birthed using this method were discovered at an early age. Video evidence of these poor children shown suffering here.
posted by Shfishp at 1:43 PM on January 25, 2007

Holy wow, this is scary. But I thought this was what the Gravitron at the fair was for...
posted by skilletfish at 1:48 PM on January 25, 2007

I came up my my own simple, yet elegant Solution for momentum assisted childbirth.

Patent Pending.
posted by isopraxis at 2:29 PM on January 25, 2007

Parent Pending.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:50 PM on January 25, 2007

Phbbbbbt! *ding!*, indeed.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 3:13 PM on January 25, 2007

had a little footrest to catch the kid.

Ha!

How about one of those giant ACME flypaper strips?

Or, you could make a game out of it. Have different nets, each one worth a different dollar amount. Mom has to try to aim the baby into the right one to get FABULOUS CASH PRIZES! But, beware the Whammy: a brick wall. Kid hits it... wham!
posted by papakwanz at 5:22 PM on January 25, 2007

It's more The Aerodrome than Brave New World, I think.
posted by breezeway at 6:38 PM on January 25, 2007

Hmm, let's take someone who's having massive fluid shifts and low blood pressures due to their pregnancy, and undergoing a procedure that incurs a not-inconsiderable risk of major hemorrhage.

Now let's spin them at a very high velocity on a contraption that uses centrifugal force to push all the blood out of their head, where their brain is, down to their feet.

Brilliant! What could possibly go wrong?
posted by ikkyu2 at 7:28 PM on January 25, 2007

So we have the method, now all we need is a nurse who's good at catching....
posted by NaturalScinema at 9:26 PM on January 25, 2007

Interestingly, in one of Heinlein's books about Lazarus Long, the fellow acted as a doctor for a woman giving birth... and used a similar effect, pulsing the artificial gravity to aid the newborn come out. I'm almost tempted to look for the copyright date for that story and compare it to the patent... Almost.
posted by DataPacRat at 9:40 PM on January 25, 2007