Huh. Sounds like longer gestation is straightforwardly pretty good for the baby, but is then counterbalanced by difficult birth if it gets too big, which would mean the baby-in-a-bag thing could actually yield some substantial benefits over a normal pregnancy. Like, you could maybe leave the baby in there a few extra weeks and it would be great.
Yeah, probably. There are a few things like “meconium aspiration” that would make a literal 1:1 womb substitute insufficient to give the baby a few more weeks, and for all we know some of the 42-43 issues are direct harms of marginal gestation. But I’d be rather surprised (<10% chance) if the optimal gestation-in-artificial-womb duration were less than 41 weeks.
Huh. Sounds like longer gestation is straightforwardly pretty good for the baby, but is then counterbalanced by difficult birth if it gets too big, which would mean the baby-in-a-bag thing could actually yield some substantial benefits over a normal pregnancy. Like, you could maybe leave the baby in there a few extra weeks and it would be great.
Yeah, probably. There are a few things like “meconium aspiration” that would make a literal 1:1 womb substitute insufficient to give the baby a few more weeks, and for all we know some of the 42-43 issues are direct harms of marginal gestation. But I’d be rather surprised (<10% chance) if the optimal gestation-in-artificial-womb duration were less than 41 weeks.