Male pregnancy

Male pregnancy is the carrying of one or more embryosor fetusesby the maleof any species, including humans, inside their bodies. The majority of all pregnanciesin the animal kingdomare carried by the female. In most heterogamous species, the males produces the spermatazoaand rarely hosts the zygote. However, examples of male pregnancy can be found in the animal kingdom, in mythology, and popular culture.

In humans

Male pregnancy in humans has been limited to the realms of speculation, science fictionand comedy, because the phenomenon would be a biological impossibility under traditional circumstances. Due to advances in modern medicinethe concept is generally considered possible, but both the risks and the chances of success are still at foolhardy levels. No known attempts at initiating a male pregnancy, much less carrying one to term, have been made to date. The ethicalconcerns that would be presented by an attempt at such a procedure are significant.

Since menlack a womb, alternative measures would have to be made for an ectopic pregnancy. Fertilization would likely be done in vitroby implantation into the abdominal cavity, and keeping the process going would require the father to take female hormones? blurring the line between the sexes, from some viewpoints. Delivery would be done by caesarean section.

Should treatment of male-to-female transsexualsreach a point where post-operative ones can become fertilein their resulting sex, some of the resulting pregnancies might be considered male ones. In either case, a possible future use for the procedure could be helping transsexuals bear children of their own.

In other species

A male seahorsetakes and fertilises the ovum of the female, then bears the offspring.

In mythology

Various mythologies have featured male characters birthing, but such events typically either take place in an entirely different fashion than an ordinary female pregnancy, such as Athenaspringing fully formed from Zeus's forehead, or when the character has been rendered female in some way, such as the shapeshifterLokiturning into a mareto distract a stallionand ending up giving birth to Sleipnir.

In popular culture

Two comedy filmscentered around the theme of such an event in humans, Rabbit Test (1978) and Junior (1994), have been released. The latter attempts are somewhat feasible; the former ignores the matter completely. On television, it has been cited as a result of alien-human interaction in at least Futurama, American Dad! and the episode "Unexpected" of Star Trek: Enterprise.

See also

• Pregnancy terms and definitions
• Male lactation
• Artificial womb

External links

• http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/malepreg.html- Articles on the feasibility of the endeavour.
• http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2002/05/08/opinion/5154.shtml- An editorial detailing the issue.
• http://www.malepregnancy.com/- A hoaxsite claiming to monitor the world's first male pregnancy.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male+pregnancy Wikipedia article Male pregnancy.