“More people” equates to “less time” for the same amount of job, right? When we search for “9 women can deliver a baby in 1 month” in google, it usually brings back results which suggests every “Project Manager” thinks like that in the world of software development. Here’s the proof:

I disagree on the fact that “every” PM is like that. Anyway, this article is not about a PM though. It’s about anyone who thinks and act the same way as it highlights in the joke. This joke has another dark side which suggests it’s easier for “any person” to think the same.

Let me be the devil’s advocate for a moment and prove that it is in fact possible but isPointless !

Biology as an Analogy

A baby stays in the mother’s womb on an average 9 months, before being officially “born” (natural birth as an example). Dad’s sperm invades mum’s ovule after competing with a million of inferior competitors. Survival of the fittest. It forms an embryo and begins a new life in a state which technically should be known as the moment of birth.

Imagine a Sci-Fi Movie “1 Month Baby”

Goal – Deliver the baby in 1 month

Hmm.. we have only 1 month to make this work and modify the human anatomy so it can produce each limb/body part of a baby separately on 9 wombs.

9 parts are (for simplicity) – Head (1), Hands(2), Legs (2), Chest compartment plus Respiratory organs (1), Spine and back (1), Buttocks (1) and reproductive organ (1) which decides if it’s a boy or a girl. 9 woman volunteers are chosen to make this happen.

To support this, each woman is specialised to deliver a particular organ/part effectively in the given deadline. The incubation period starts off well, everything is hunky dory. It’s a movie so there has to be a twist isn’t it? One unfortunate day, one of them got hit by a truck. Laying in the hospital bed she is not thinking about her own broken spine, she is thinking about the damage to the “head” inside her. Although it’s not a whole baby, it still is a baby for the mother.

Now the plan was to synchronise and deliver all parts on a single date, so we can eventually get a fully grown baby. The accident damaged the head and is not fit for purpose anymore. So the baby will never have a head, which is in fact the most important bit. So basically after a month there are 2 options –

1. Let the baby live without a head
2. Declare failure and blame the mother for getting hit by a truck

On top of that, questions will be raised on “Ethical” subjects –

1. Who gets the baby after all this? Who will be called as the mother?
2. To do this, don’t we need 9 specialised “Men” as well. So who will be the father?

FFS.. this is getting out of hands, lets plan a sequel to cover that subject later !

Back to Reality !

Question: Have the medical science managed to find a solution like that yet, in real world?

Answer: Not yet, phew ! But we are humans. We are good at breaking nature’s law for our selfish lives. We may one day able to do it in the name of “best breed” of babies. After all, human are playing the new god.

I believe, we should just iterate over each stages of development, on the same baby. It’s only natural.

Do you have a better option under your sleeves? Let’s explore it then, shall we?

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