Balloon Baby is tiny when it's unwrapped. About the size of a thumb, it has a disproportionately large head with scrunched features, and folded up arms and legs, just like an early stage foetus in fact. Protruding from its midsection is a short section of tubing sealed with a spring clip.

The instructions tell you to release the clip and blow one short breath of air through the tube every day. Over a period of weeks Balloon Baby begins to swell and change.

As different sections of the balloon are made from latex of a variety of thicknesses and strengths, the changes are able to mirror the changes in a real unborn baby as it grows.

After the 9 months gestation period, Balloon Baby is completely inflated. To celebrate this joyous day, the internal pressure which has accumulated, releases a crying valve, and Balloon Baby loudly announces its arrival for a few seconds.

You can then either keep it as a novelty balloon, or release the valve and allow it to shoot around the room as it madly deflates and returns to its diminutive pre-inflated state.
-- xenzag, Dec 20 2006

foetusballoonmaiden http://homepage.mac...usballoonmaiden.htm
By Dominic Kulcsar [jutta, Dec 21 2006]

how in the hell do you think this shit up?
-- Stork, Dec 20 2006


I just imagine you reading it and it comes easily.
-- xenzag, Dec 20 2006


// or release the valve and allow it to shoot around the room as it madly deflates and returns to it its diminutive pre-inflated state. //

Postpartum deflation.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 21 2006


Ooh, I like. But for accuracy I think you would need to send along a booklet that would tell you how many breaths of air per day you would need to do. Babies in the womb grow in size at different rates depending on the stage they are at.

Look at me all medical-like and stuff.

Don't forget to account for air loss through the latex membrane. I wish you could use helium without too many problems because as it filled it would slowly become the floating baby like from 2010.
-- NotTheSharpestSpoon, Dec 21 2006


Could this just be hooked up to a small programmed air compressor? No calculation of breaths or anything.

//I just imagine you reading it and it comes easily// Marked for HB Tag Line

This was simply the best come back ever.
-- Chefboyrbored, Dec 21 2006


This is weird and truly half-baked. A big latex bun [in the oven] for you.
-- webfishrune, Dec 21 2006


Could come optionally pre-packaged in a clear plastic chamber filled with a slighty viscous gooey watery gel to simulate the birth chamber which would also inflate and have to be popped with a pin to simulate a water break.

The birther would then have to clean their newborn and wrap it in swaddling.

Not to be used as a pinata.
-- nth, Dec 21 2006


...educationally bizarre--bizarrely educational--+
-- xandram, Dec 21 2006


Wait so when u let it go prematurely then its... Inflatable abortion! YOU FREAK! lol. I give u a neutral.
-- lions8, Jan 01 2007


How do you ever get to sleep at night?
-- wagster, Jan 02 2007


cool..

i'll not add anything as this is a nice and cozy feel idea. and all my additions are askew of that . leaning towards the morbid..

but WOW the differing thickness that will sculpt the inflatable ..

do-able and COOL (+)
-- Sir_Misspeller, Dec 30 2008


Installation artists would have a field day with these.
-- ryokan, Dec 30 2008


Hi.

this is a bit awkward.

I am your>POP<!
-- Sir_Misspeller, Dec 30 2008


You could fill it with a small amount of grape juice and a little yeast, then it would expand of its own accord and deliver a somewhat overbaked wine at the end of it.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 30 2008


Yeah, I was just racking my brain trying to think of a suitable gas-producing chemical reaction that you could harness to do the inflating for you. Kind of a "twist to crack the seal then it just goes" type arrangement.

I think a biological reaction like yeast may be better, as you suggest. Timing this thing for exactly 9 months may be difficult, especially given the temperature response of yeast cultures. The other option would be to engineer it for a superfluity of gas, and regulate it with an adjustable pressure releif valve. The trick'll be doing it automaticaly.
-- Custardguts, Dec 30 2008



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