Male pregnancy

This article is about pregnancy in male organisms. For the sympathetic condition which occurs in some future fathers, see Couvade.

Male pregnancy is the carrying of one or more embryos or fetuses by the male of any species inside their bodies. The majority of all pregnancies in the animal kingdom are carried by female organisms. In most heterogamous species, the males produce the spermatazoa and rarely host the zygote (By definition, animals that are, hermaphroditic, asexual or with more than two sexes aren't males).

Natural normal occurrence in male animals

The Syngnathidae family of fish which includes the seahorses, the pipefishes, and the weedy and leafy sea dragons. Fish of this family have the unique characteristic whereby females lay their eggs in a brood pouch on the male's chest, and the male then fertilizes and incubates the eggs. It's the only family of species in the animal kingdom to which the term "male pregnancy" has been applied.

Speculation on possibility of induced pregnancy in males

Theoretical possibilities include the use or not of a womb. In Britain, doctors would have to obtain permission to carry out such treatments on a man, from the the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

Use of a womb

The first uterine transplant in humans, was performed in Saudi Arabia in 2000, from one woman to another.The transplant survived for 99 days and had to be removed eventually. This advance drew speculation about the possibility of a male receiving a womb transplant, and bearing a child from the transplanted womb. Womb transplants to males have been performed in animals (rabbits).

Related to this method,of "male pregnancy", an artificial womb could be used, but this is still far off.

No womb

This idea has been floating around by various people for some time,including in the book of famous doctor Robert Winston.

Surgical intervention may make it possible for a male to sustain a pregnancy, through the induction of an abdominal ectopic pregnancy, but it would be dangerous and has never been attempted (abdominal ectopic pregnancies sometimes happens in females). Fertilization would be done in vitro by implantation into the abdominal cavity, and starting the process would require the male to take female hormones—blurring the line between the sexes.

However, there are serious misgivings about this process' safety,which has the same shortcomings as in females.

In women, ectopic pregnancies are generally removed as soon as possible. While a fetus of ectopic pregnancy is typically not viable (that naturally occur in females), very rarely, an abdominal pregnancy has been salvaged in females (typically women, a procedure too expensive for animals). The delivery requires a Cesarean section to remove the baby and the placenta. Removal of the placenta is the real danger because it forms such intimate connections with surrounding blood vessels that a massive hemorrhage is likely. Implantation may also involve other structures in the abdomen, including the bowel and it is possible that parts of other organs might have to be removed. Several physicians who are well-accustomed to advanced and dangerous forms of ectopic pregnancies have to be on-hand to handle any complication. The fetus is also in danger of complications because it is deprived of the protection of a uterus.

In popular culture

File:MalePregnancy poster.jpg

Poster released by the Family Planning Association of Victoria, Australia in the 1970s, advocating condom use, by featuring a fictitious male pregnancy.

Two comedy films centered around the theme of such an event in humans, Rabbit Test (1978) and Junior (1994), have been released. The latter's attempts are somewhat scientifically feasible; the former does not address the matter. Television episodes and series have featured such pregnancies as a result of alien-human interaction, including Futurama, American Dad!, Alien Nation, Dilbert and the episode "Unexpected" of Star Trek: Enterprise, as well as in the computer game The Sims 2.There are also rumors and hoaxes on the subject for actual achievements.

• If a "Sim" (a human simulation from the computer game The Sims 2) stargazes with a telescope, he/she may be abducted by aliens. If it is an adult male, he will get pregnant with an alien baby. Likewise, the Sim will eventually give birth like female Sims do.
• In an episode of Charmed, Leo becomes pregnant with Piper's baby for a short term.
• In full House Jesse carries around a "sympathy path" to simulate being pregnant as a bet with his wife and an elderly man claims to have seen a pregnant man
• In the first episode of Torchwood Captain Jack mentions that he once got pregnant.
• In an episode of Red Dwarf, Lister becomes pregnant after visiting a parallel universe where male and female are reversed and he has sex with his counterpart.
• An episode of Sliders depicts a world where men carry children to term because women lost the ability in a catastrophic disaster.
• In an episode of Futurama, Kif becomes pregnant with Leela's DNA, but claims Amy as his "Smizmar" and therefore the mother.
• The Cosby Show's sixth season features a dream sequence episode where a volcanic eruption releases spores causing male pregnancy and several characters fall victim; they ultimately give birth to nonhuman objects such as a model sailboat and a submarine sandwich.
• In the movie Billy Madison, Billy makes a wisecrack about Eric getting pregnant (referring him to being a potential soccer player)
• In the sitcom Step by Step, Frank and J.T. make a bet with Carol and Dana that they can handle being pregnant better than women by stuffing really heavy objects in their shirts and walking around like that for a few days...they ultimately give up and lose.
• Sam Beckett occupies the body of a pregnant woman during an episode of Quantum Leap and at the show's conclusion gives birth to the child. The Quantum Leap premise is such that along with Sam, and possibly his friend Al, the viewer is the only one capable of seeing actor Scott Bakula's physical form in place of the currently possessed body, prompting speculation as to what it must have looked like during the child's delivery. Nevertheless, the director of photography refrained from including footage of Sam's genital area.
• A hoax site, "www.malepregnancy.com" monitoring a fictitious male pregnancy. Mr. Lee has been "expecting" since December of 1999.

Thematically, pregnancy can be related to issues of parasitism and gender. Some science fiction writers have picked up on these issues, in "cross-gender" themes—e.g., Octavia Butler's Bloodchild. Lois McMaster Bujold's Ethan of Athos features an all-male society in which men use artificial wombs, but experience many of the psychological effects of pregnancy (anticipation, anxiety, etc.). In Marge Piercy's feminist utopian novel Woman on the Edge of Time, neither men nor women get pregnant, but men may take drugs to lactate and nurse the infant; the experience of "pregnancy" and the woman-only experience of nursing were sacrificed for gender equality. In the Internet comedy series Red vs. Blue, the character of Tucker is impregnated by a parasitic embryo from an alien creature. Roger Corman's B-film Night of the Blood Beast [4] (1958) featured a male scientist being impregnated by an alien.

Male pregnancy is frequently seen in fan fiction; such stories may be denoted as "mpreg", a term coined by two writers under the pseudonyms of Taleya Joinson and Texas Ranger, who created and maintained what is believed to be the first fan fiction archive dedicated to stories of this genre in 1998. The pregnancies may be the result of advanced medical technology (e.g., experiments on Mulder from The X-Files), mystical pregnancies, magic or are unexplained.

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 Athena springing fully-formed from Zeus's forehead, or when the character has been rendered female in some way, such as the shapeshifter Loki turning into a mare to distract a stallion and ending up giving birth to Sleipnir.

Related situations

Fetus in fetu

Males with parasitic twins are not pregnant, but there are some similarities. For example, the parasitic fetus sometimes attaches to the host with an umbilical cord and grows in the host's abdomen. In one rare case, an Indian man named Sanju Bhagat carried his twin brother until he was 36.

Pregnancy in intersex individuals

Some intersex people with XY chromosomes develop entirely female bodies and, if the individual develops a uterus, in vitro fertilization is possible (this can be true for animals too).

Pregnancy in transsexual people

Some female-to-male transsexuals who interrupt hormone treatments can become pregnant, while still identifying and living as male—this is possible for individuals who still have functioning ovaries. For example, Matt Rice (ex-partner of writer Patrick Califia), bore a child by artificial insemination. Although the individual is genetically and physiologically female, from an identity standpoint, this could be considered a "male pregnancy".