Callie Hornbuckle
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
As a new fan of yours, I thank you for your wonderful novels! As a new mother, I greatly appreciated your treatment of childbirth in Barrayar - it was refreshingly realistic for the genre, even down to the infant breastfeeding shortly after delivery. This detail lead to some curiosity about uterine replicators, however. Do those who make use of the replicators ever breastfeed? Lactation-inducing drugs, perhaps?
Lois McMaster Bujold
I expect lactation in the Vorkosiverse is a matter of choice; the hormones etc. could certainly be made to sit up and behave if personal lactation was wanted (by any gender, actually), with the tech shown. As yet another alternative, vat-created human breast milk would also be feasible. Different places and times would pursue different fads. In all, more choices, more conscious decisions for the poor beleaguered parent.
(I have had occasion to reflect that the female mammalian body is actually a device for filtering nutrition from the environment through to the next generation, both pre- and postpartum. Evolution, so strange...)
Ta, L.
I expect lactation in the Vorkosiverse is a matter of choice; the hormones etc. could certainly be made to sit up and behave if personal lactation was wanted (by any gender, actually), with the tech shown. As yet another alternative, vat-created human breast milk would also be feasible. Different places and times would pursue different fads. In all, more choices, more conscious decisions for the poor beleaguered parent.
(I have had occasion to reflect that the female mammalian body is actually a device for filtering nutrition from the environment through to the next generation, both pre- and postpartum. Evolution, so strange...)
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
Liz
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Hi! I've been rereading all your books this year since August because they are one of my comfort rereads and, since I just had another kid, they're a wonderful meditation on families and what it means to be a parent. And thank you for that! And leaving that aside, I was wondering - while rereading Paladin of Souls - whether Desdemona is still around somewhere and whether Foix dy Gura ever gets to meet her?
Diane Houdek
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
There are certain authors that I will immediately order/preorder their new book, but will then save said book to read as a reward or to consume in pure happiness because I know the writing, plot, world-building, etc are top notch and will not disappoint. You, T. Kingfisher, Alma T.C. Boykin, James Benn, (Terry Pratchett, alas) are some of my very favorites. Are there authors or series about which you feel similarly?
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