Scientists are studying how the gravitational field will affect processes such as pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation, as well as the role of microgravity in the reproductive cycle.
Only millionaires like Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, along with celebrities and other select small groups, have traveled into space (or at least crossed the Karman line). However, it is only a matter of time before ordinary people start occupying more and more of that hostile space. The above, of course, comes with its own problems and complications: We’ve already talked about what happens if someone dies in space, for example. Here’s another problem that comes with space travel: Is pregnancy possible in space?
Unfortunately, it is still uncertain. Before considering the possibility of breeding on the International Space Station or on another planet, as part of future space colonies, Scientists need to understand the dangers of space of our cells, tissues, and organs. Radiation is known to damage the DNA of our cells, but little is known about how changes in gravity affect their functions.
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Scientists begin to Embryonic stem cell experiments and create models that show the development of fetuses during the first weeks in space. Depending on the results of these and other tests, we may be able to learn more about whether or not it could hold future colonies outside our planet.
Mammals and Biology
Tests have shown that it is possible Animals such as fish, frogs, or geckos produce eggs that are fertilized in space, which can live and reproduce again on Earth. However, this is not the case for mammals (at least not yet). according to ConversationOne study found that the reproductive cycle of mice was disrupted by exposure to microgravity. Another also found that the same exposure can cause neurological changes in them: effects that can be passed on to future generations.
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Microgravity plays an important role because our organisms have evolved, over millions of years, in the terrestrial environment. We do not evolve in zero gravity. Earth’s gravity ‘lays down’ on us and produces certain forces on our tissues, cells and inside, something that has been studied by science. Mechanobiology.
Another issue to consider is the position the fetuses take inside the womb to prepare for birth, as well as the role that gravity plays in embryonic development: it helps place the right cells in the right places. There is also a file gravitational fieldIt is not yet known how it will affect processes such as fertilization, hormone production, lactation and childbirth.
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