From the archives: Womb for improvement
Pregnancy can be painful and, for some women, impossible. New technology may allow more women to have children and save the lives of prematurely born infants.
Aria Babu writes about artificial wombs, for Issue 6. You can read it on our website here.
While for most women pregnancy is a miraculous experience that gives them a unique bond with their child, having children can be challenging. Some women face serious risks during pregnancy. For others it is not even an option.
The risks of pregnancy vary widely. Generally, even when pregnancy is possible, it is rarely easy. For many women, it can involve illness and pain, starting with morning sickness and months of carrying extra weight that make walking and sitting difficult. Many pregnant women report that they feel fatigued, can’t sleep properly, and get swollen ankles and “baby brain”, which makes them forgetful and scattered.
For women who were taking medical treatments before, it’s often unclear whether those treatments will be safe during pregnancy and which doses should be given. This is especially difficult for women with epilepsy, depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, ADHD, or chronic pain. Pregnant women were initially refused Covid-19 vaccines in some countries, despite being at a higher risk of serious illness and miscarriage from Covid itself.
There are major threats to the mother’s and child’s health from any pregnancy, some so dangerous that some women are unable to have children at all. Pregnant women can develop gestational diabetes, or pre-eclampsia, which causes seizures, high blood pressure, vomiting, and swelling. In severe cases, this can result in the death of the mother and her baby.
Then there is the delivery – one of the most painful things a woman will ever experience. Lots of women experience complications that can lead to long-term problems: 90% experience some vaginal tearing and 6% experience a third- or fourth-degree tear, which leaves 3% of mothers with faecal incontinence. Many women find sex painful for months after giving birth and report incontinence or pelvic floor problems. About 700 women a year die of pregnancy or childbirth-related conditions in the United States alone, while 300,000 die worldwide, mostly from preventable conditions and diseases.
Vaginal birth itself increases the risk of blood clots, haemorrhage, and sepsis, particularly if there were complications with the growth of the baby. To avoid these risks, caesareans are also an option. But, of course, they are also risky. Cutting through the muscle tissue of the abdomen is no small matter, taking time and care to heal. It’s difficult to follow all of this through when a mother is caring for a new infant, which is why the stitches can tear or the wound can become infected.
Immediately after giving birth, hormones fluctuate. The birth causes a release of oxytocin and decrease in progesterone, estradiol, and dopamine, meaning that many new mothers go through a phase after birth where they cry easily and experience a low sex drive – known as the “baby blues”. One in ten women experience this so acutely that they suffer from postnatal depression and one in a thousand experience postpartum psychosis. After giving birth, a woman’s body will probably never be the same. In all likelihood she’ll have gained weight, her breasts will sag, and the stretch marks on her belly may never go away. Her bladder control will never be what it was and sex may feel worse than it used to.
Of course, there is a reason why most women are willing to persevere through this difficult process – children are wonderful. Having children and building a family is, for many people, the most important and meaningful thing in their life. But many women and couples do not have this choice, or face risks far too great to try. For them, there may be another way.
You can read the rest of the piece here.