{"id":78902,"date":"2025-11-13T23:01:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T04:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=78902"},"modified":"2025-11-13T23:01:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T04:01:11","slug":"the-quest-for-the-artificial-womb-between-fiction-and-research-advances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/the-quest-for-the-artificial-womb-between-fiction-and-research-advances\/","title":{"rendered":"The quest for the “artificial womb”: between fiction and research advances"},"content":{"rendered":"

What if gestation, or at least part of the process, could be externalized using extrauterine devices, whether to continue the development of premature newborns or for more political purposes, such as combating declining birth rates? Such technology is still a long way from being feasible, but research is indeed being conducted in this area.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Last August, rumors circulated that a Chinese researcher, Zhang Qifeng, founder of Kaiwa Technology, was working on developing humanoid robots with artificial wombs, capable of carrying a fetus for up to ten months. The prototype is said to be nearly finalized and should be ready by 2026.\u00a0<\/span>Price of the “pregnancy robot”: 100,000 yuan<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(approximately 12,000 euros).<\/span><\/p>\n

Upon verification, it appears that this reproductive technique, called “ectogenesis,” will not be implemented in China and that the\u00a0<\/span>information circulating is false<\/span><\/a>\u00a0. The same applies to the existence of Zhang Qifeng.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, even though for the moment the artificial womb (AW) is science fiction, the creation of such a technical device \u2013 seen as an extension of neonatal incubators and medically assisted reproduction techniques \u2013 is the subject of research in several countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Animal research on extrauterine devices<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

The idea of \u200b\u200bconceiving and giving birth to a child completely outside the woman’s body, from conception to birth, is not new. The geneticist\u00a0<\/span>John Burdon Sanderson Haldane<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(1892-1964), who coined the term “ectogenesis,” conceived of it in 1923.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the predictions of this <\/span><\/a>eugenics<\/span><\/a>\u00a0advocate\u00a0, the first baby conceived through artificial insemination was expected to be born in 1951.<\/span><\/p>\n

Henri Atlan, a specialist in bioethics and author of\u00a0<\/span>The Artificial Womb<\/span><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(2005), believed that the realization of the AU could take place by the\u00a0<\/span>middle or end of the 21st century<\/span><\/a>\u00a0.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though AU does not yet exist, researchers have already begun to conduct trials on animals, hoping to subsequently develop AU prototypes applicable to humans.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1993, for example, in Japan,\u00a0<\/span>Professor Yoshinori Kuwabara<\/span><\/a>\u00a0designed an incubator containing artificial amniotic fluid that allowed two goat fetuses (120 days and 128 days old, with gestation being five months in goats, or around 150 days) to develop outside the uterus for three weeks. At birth, they survived for more than a week.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2017, an article published in\u00a0<\/span>Nature Communications<\/span><\/em><\/a>\u00a0revealed the work of\u00a0<\/span>Alan Flake’s team<\/span><\/a>\u00a0, a fetal surgeon at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (USA), which enabled lamb fetuses to partially develop, again in an extrauterine device filled with artificial amniotic fluid, for four weeks. With appropriate nutrition, the lambs experienced apparently normal growth, particularly in lung and brain development.<\/span><\/p>\n