You must have heard of the word ectogenesis even though you might not know exactly what it is. To put it in simple words, ectogenesis is the science that allows a fetus to grow artificially outside the mother’s womb. Currently, it’s not possible because the technology isn’t quite developed yet. However, once it is, ectogenesis researchers and specialists believe that it can significantly reduce prenatal deaths and mothers getting complications during delivery.
How would an average human being react to this?
Think of this entire process in an imaginary world where you’re given two options. The first being, carrying a baby in your womb for months at a stretch and still having the risk of him or her getting ill or you dying during childbirth. The other option is letting the fetus grow safely in an artificial womb. You would think that all the answers would be inclined towards the second option because of how safe it is. Surprisingly enough, it is not so. Human beings fear the unknown no matter how good it is. Unless the technology is rolled out all over the world and doctors start advocating it, only then can this technology be trusted by them.
Professors teaching medicine all over the world are trying to create an awareness regarding how an artificial womb baby born. They are asking that more research is done and this topic is delved deeply into so that ectogenesis can soon be available to the common public.
Creating an awareness
It is important to note that being pregnant and giving birth, in general, is a very taxing experience for a woman’s health. A woman’s immune system becomes very weak during pregnancy and she’s very likely to catch severe diseases. It’s sad to see how so many health campaigns are carried out against so many diseases around the world but pregnancy and death during pregnancy are discussed so rarely.
What’s happening in this sector now?
In the current scenario, growing a baby in an artificial womb for 40 weeks straight is not possible, however, everyone believes it’s going to happen soon if adequate financial help is given to research in this sector.
If you think about this from a scientific point of view, the benefits associated with the same are enormous. The co-culture system which mimics the environment in the uterus has kept fertilized embryos alive for more than a fortnight. The biggest breakthrough in this sector has been the lambs being sustained in a fluid-filled bio bag, which mimicked the womb. These lambs were equivalent to a 23-week human fetus.
Scientists and researchers want to create a sustainable system that allows babies to develop in the bag for the entire period, starting from the fertilization of the sperm into an embryo right to the delivery of the baby. This isn’t quite possible because keeping an embryo outside the uterus for more than 14 days is forbidden by the law. It is hoped that these laws regarding baby born in the artificial womb are relaxed in the days to come. Scientists are hopeful because, in the past, rules surrounding the IVF treatment were relaxed to accommodate brilliant technologies.