Laurie Wheeler's post about using length of pregnancy as an analogy remind
me of something I meant to post to LactNet but probably forgot.  October's
LIFE Magazine (the one with the photo of a prison on the front) has a really
scary photographo of a goat fetus floating in an artificial uterus.  It is
provided oxygen and food via tubes through it's umbilical cord, and *seems*
to be doing fine.  Of course, who knows what its brain will be like, given
that it hasn't been being moved around inside a mother goat, with all the
movements, sounds, temperature changes, etc. one would expect inside the womb.

I have been contemplating writing a short story about some time in the
future when artificial utereruses are perfected for human babies and no one
has to be pregnant at all -- you can have your egg harvested and fertilized
with your husband's sperm in the lab and the baby grown entirely in an
artificial uterus (like bottle-feeding from birth) or if you want your baby
to be healthier, you can have refular fertilization and grow it in your
uterus until say 4 months, then have it removed and transfered to the
artificial uterus (like breastfeeding for one year, then bottle-feeding).
Even though the normal length of gestation (breastfeeding) used to be 9
months (6-7 years), no one in their right mind would want to be pregnant
(breastfeed) that long, right?  Just think, you could avoid being all
stretched out by pregnancy, you could avoid the health complications, you
could avoid the pain of labor and delivery, you wouldn't have to take off
from work, etc. . . . . . . .

Kathy D.