In DC Comics, the story of Superman follows a man named Clark Kent who comes from the planet Krypton. His true name is Kal-El, and he was the first and only naturally born Kryptonian child of his generation. Reading this or hearing about it as children, you might have assumed it was pretty cool. Babies could fully grow in labs or pods on Krypton? No woman was having children naturally except for Superman’s mom? That had to be science fiction, right?
[Image via Princeton IVF]For now, this will not be the case for very long. Right now, premature babies born at the 6-month mark can develop fully outside the mother’s womb, under hospital care. We can already have sperm link up with an egg in a lab before putting it inside a woman. These steps are proving that we’re getting close to the capacity of full child development in a lab. For some, this is how the future might look for family development. Taking an egg and sperm cells from two parents and having the child form for 9 months in a lab. We’re so close that experts feel we’re about a decade or two away.