Pregnant in Outerspace?

Question

I know it has never happened because of safety reasons but does anyone else think it would be really cool to give birth in outerspace?

What are other reasons besides not having a doctor on board a space craft that this is not permitted?

Do you think we will be able to do this in the future?

Answer 1

To your last question:  Either it will happen, or we will be stuck on this planet without any possibility of going anywhere else.

If we want to travel through space (and if we want to colonize other planets around other stars), we will need multi-generation space crafts, where some people will be born in space (and some will die) during the trip.

Right now, all space programs are keeping risks to a minimum.  Anyone with a medical condition that could require  medical attention or create a risk for life or health is simply banned from space travel.

However, with the advent of "civilian" space travel, we will begin to see marriages in space (one company is already taking bookings).  It wont be long until someone tries copulation in space and, eventually, someone will be rich enough to become the first woman to give birth in space.

My guess:  ten years from now.

Even for the trip to Mars, we will have to learn to treat patients in space craft.  So we might as well get used to it, and practice some simpler interventions.  Childbirth is not that outlandish a medical intervention.  One problem is the training for the mother:  one of the most common reaction to weightlessness is nausea.  That will definitely add to the messiness of the event.

Answer 2

it would be an awful mess and with all those medicle tools floating around!!!

it would be neat for that to happen but i wonder how the baby would develope if it stayed in outer space with out gravity would it become tall really quickly(astronauts that return to earth experiance a gain in height  because of less pressure on there spines) and cells act kinda weird in space so would it survrive.

Answer 3

lol wouldn't it be really messy

Answer 4

It is possible for a woman to give birth without a doctor.  Doctors are a relatively new invention, and people have been giving birth for millions of years.

It isn't possible for me to give birth in orbit.  I look pregnant, but when i'm at the store, i'm not looking for a home pregnancy kit, but rather some diet thing.  I'm male.  It'd be much easier to just give birth, but it just isn't an option.

NASA has flown a married couple on the space shuttle. They weren't married when they were assigned to the mission. NASA doesn't say what this couple did on the mission, apart from their mission objectives.  I suspect that the answer is "not very much", because there isn't what you'd call privacy on a space shuttle. But in any case, these missions last a couple weeks, and it takes much longer for a pregnancy to go to term.  Nine women can't produce a baby in one month.

One problem with even low Earth Orbit is that cosmic rays and gamma rays can produce high mutation rates.  For an adult, this leads to higher rates of cancer, but, for example, John Glenn is still alive, and he went into orbit in the early 60's.  The adult body can tolerate a few mutations here and there.  But a baby's cells divide many, many times before adulthood.  So a few mutations can be easily replicated into an awful mess.  Long before humans give birth and have kids grow up in space, we'll want to try it on other animals first.  Complex organisms like us take a long time to mature.  We might try mice, which have a normal life span of a few years.  That's still a long mission.  But it's pretty easy to get the mice to volunteer.

Space is going to be pretty nasty until we get the cosmic ray (they're actually particles) and high energy (xray & gamma ray) radiation shielding under control.

Do i want to go to the Moon?  Not too much.  I'd end up spending as much time as i could underground, which doesn't sound like much fun.  Maybe if i get a little older.  I'd go at 80.  If my health keeps up, i might be qualified at 80.

Answer 5

Whilst I doubt that human beings have been giving birth for millions of years with or without doctors, having originated only 250, 000 years ago, but I think it will happen, sometime. I dare say it would be messier, but frankly, human beings do messier things which have been handled (although, they do break down occasionally,  just like last month on the ISS!). There have been some discussions on s*x in space too, which are... interesting.

Answer 6

Reasons it's not 'permitted':

1) The cost just to send pregnant women wanting to give birth in space up there would be ridiculous.

2) No company is going to put themselves in a situation like that, where they'd be held responsible if something goes wrong.

3) Since the effects of being born into 0 Gs haven't been studied, no one wants to risk it.

4) The stress of being launched into space would be incredibly dangerous to a pregnant woman.

Kind of a silly question, my friend.