Pregnancies/Theories

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Why the pregnancies fail

Pregnancy and Fertility Issues were caused by the Incident

Before the Incident it would seem it was perfectly possible to conceive and give birth on the island, backed up by Ethan. However, whatever the Incident was, it caused pregnancies to become problematic on the island. The electromagnetism of The Swan was felt everywhere on the island to some degree, as proven by the dodgy Compass Locke had, and the Oceanic Flight being brought down by the failure to push the button. Perhaps the fetus reacts negatively to the strong electromagnetism around the island. After the Purge, the only inhabitants of the island virtually was the Others, which means they were left to deal with the pregnancy issues. However, they had very little knowledge about the Swan, because it was hidden, hence why in all those years they never found out why there were pregnancy issues.

The Incident interfered with the light from the Source. The failed pregnancies are a result of the darkness spreading on the Island.
Once the Incident began an infinite time loop "started" in which 30 odd years went by and a population (the left-behinds) was sent through time before settling in 1973. The infertility results because any children/people added to the population in the loop would cause an increase of X children/loop. This would in turn increase infinitely (through any probability of conception over absolute zero at an infinite rate) so that the population would reach infinitely instantly and destroy the loop. Therefore no people can be added to the loop who are not subsequently removed from the loop.
- Examples of added/subtracted from time loop:
  - Alex is born to Danielle (added) but killed (removed)
  - Aaron born but leaves the island and does not return to the loop
  - Ji Yeon
  - Ethan (conceived before arrival of Sawyer & co.)
- An issue with this theory may be the fact that the Others don't seem to travel through the loop with non-natives (evidenced by their disappearance in front of Locke); still it seems that this theory may be partially right, with the time loop/"paradox" prohibiting the arrival of new players in the loop.
If one assumes that the bomb DID detonate, causing the Incident, this would mean Juliet caused the very problem that brought her to the Island to begin with--one of many examples of irony as a result of the time travelling.--Allforareason 05:34, June 17, 2010 (UTC)

Narrative logic virtually demands that the fertility problems are related to the Incident:

In The Other Woman, Juliet tells Sun that "The problem occurs somewhere during the second trimester."
In Ji Yeon, Juliet details the symptoms of the pregnancy complications experienced on the Island; they are very apparent, and end in death to mother and baby "somewhere after their 100th day of pregnancy," i.e., long before the normal gestation period of 270 days
In LaFleur, Sawyer is told that the Dharma women are taken off-Island to give birth. This is the sole piece of evidence adduced to demonstrate that the pregnancy problem existed prior to the Incident. However, the details are not even remotely similar to the issues Juliet describes:
- Amy was only two weeks premature with Ethan and she had been scheduled to leave on the sub only the previous Tuesday, so this does not address the second-trimester pregnancy issues described by Juliet.
- The only significant issue with Amy's pregnancy was that Ethan was breach.
- The fact that Dharma women would go to the mainland for delivery is easily explained by the reasonable assumption that Dharma did not have medical facilities or staff to deal with pregnancy complications, and it made more sense to send women off-Island to deliver than it would have to build the facilities and hire the staff necessary to deal with whatever normal complications might have occurred.
- The inability to cope with Ethan's delivery is merely a plot device to get Juliet--known to Dharma as a mechanic--involved with the delivery.
After Sawyer is told that Dharma women deliver off-Island, he and Juliet have the following interchange:

JULIET: Don't you understand that every time I try to help a woman on this island give birth, it hasn't worked?

SAWYER: Well, maybe whatever made that happen hasn't happened yet.

Sawyer's speech here is pretty clearly distinguishing between Amy's pregnancy complications and the pregnancy issues that later took the lives of all the women who conceived and remained on the Island. It is also clearly foreshadowing the Incident, which is the climactic event that ended the season.

Reproductive cancer

Radiation from the Jack and etc. blowing up Jughead releases radiation and electromagnetic energy in such high doses that cancer affects everyone, but it is a special type because of the electromagnetic energy mixed in. Reproductive cancer: It attacks the woman's eggs and uterus, but causes mens' sperm to multiply rapidly (hence the dramatically increased sperm count). The sperm and eggs are not normal, so the woman's body attacks the zygote, while the cancer kills the mother, so both die.

Caused by Jacob's Nemesis

It is possible that while Jacob was recruting/touching people that he would need in his centuries long battle with his nemesis that the nemesis was doing some recruiting of his own. He caused the island pregnancies to fail in order to bring Juliet so that she would ultimatley ensure that Jughead was set off.

I think Jacob's nemesis orchestrated the destruction of the statue in order to keep innocent/good people from being on the island. This makes it more difficult for Jacob to maintain control of the island.
- As an aside: If Juliet's detonation of the bomb caused the destruction of the statue, and that caused fatal pregnancies then her reason for coming to the island was caused by her own actions. This circular cause/effect is important to Season 5.
Jacob's Nemesis hates humanity, so he made it so that women who conceive on the island will die, in an effort to indirectly kill off all the island's inhabitants.
another theory is that jacobs nemesis always hated how people were coming to the island such because it causes destruction and all the things he listed in his first appereance, which would lead him to kill the babies within the womb and the mothers so that the men could no longer reproudce and the people on the island would finally die. Also, after a while the doctors would realize hey this island does crazy shit all the time, how do we know its not doing this too?? finally, Jacob protected sun because she was going to play a key part eventually and claire because shell play a key part in the island...

Caused by Jacob's Hand-Picking of Island Arrivals

The pregnancy issues didn't start until Jacob started hand-picking the people he wanted to come to the island. He has something to prove, and needs these specific people to prove it; other people might upset the whole operation. He didn't want anyone else to come, whether via plane, boat, or uterus.

The first hand-picked arrival was probably Kate, sometime in the 1980s, which would account for Ethan's birth in 1974 and no known births afterwards by people who had conceived ON the island.
- The only people known to have given birth after this date are Rousseau and Claire, but remember--both of them conceived off the island, arrived on the island with hand-picked castaways (Rousseau arrived with Jin; Claire with the other 815ers) and were past the point when the "immune system turns against the fetus."
  - I guess there is one person young enough to tear my theory apart: Karl.
    - But we don't really know how Karl got to the island. Perhaps he wasn't born there.

===Caused by Radiation===I

The damaged Jughead bomb was moved to the caves to help contain the radiation. The Dharma initiative later built their town on top of the caves. Radiation from the bomb could be escaping the caves and causing complications during pregnancy. The fact that there is access to the caves through Ben's house might have also caused his cancer.
- By 1977, when Ethan was born with almost no problems at all, the bomb was buried under the caves for at least 20 years.
  - Actually, wasn't the bomb placed not in the caves but the tunnels that link the temple and the area beneath the barracks. Radiation leaking from jughead and the close proximity if the bomb and the barracks seems the most likely cause of these ills.

Caused by birth of Ethan

The fertility issues are a result of the Island attempting to course-correct an event that should not have happened -- the birth of Ethan Rom. The first act of the time travelling left-behinders are to intervene in the event of the hostiles attempting to execute members of the Dharma Initiative in 1974 including Amy, who later became pregnant with Ethan. If Amy was supposed to die, meaning Ethan was never supposed to be conceived let alone born, then the heroics of Sawyer and Juliet in saving her life, and allowing Ethan to be born, have forced the island to attempt a course correction. The island will not allow any children to be conceived and born on the island until Ethan Rom has been killed, as he should have been all along. In this way Juliet is recruited to the island in 2001 to solve a problem she essentially created in 1974. She went through years of suffering as she failed to solve the problem and she is not relieved of this guilt and pain until she saves the life of baby Ethan.

The Incident

In 1977, Faraday was going to detonate Jughead, a hydrogen bomb. When bombs are detonated, they emit radiation. By physics calculations, it has been determined that doses of radiation can cause stillbirth and spontaneous abortion in pregnant women. Not only do the women lose their children, but their own immune systems are also depressed. It has also been proven that men exposed to doses of radiation also have been sterile for a period of time. Increased and continuous doses of radiation could lead to permanent sterilization of a region like The Island. The reason Amy was able to have her baby safely was because the Jughead had not been detonated yet. However, that would explain why Jin is sterile in the future. I know this all sounds very crazy, and I trust you, it is. But sometimes crazy pays off.

But Jin is sterile before he ever goes to the Island so what happened after time-travel would have no bearing on his pre-island self...

Flight 316

Before Flight 316, Sawyer went to Juliet to convince her to deliver Amy's baby, Ethan. When Juliet comments that the mothers always die, Sawyer responds "Well, maybe whatever made that happen hasn't happened yet." Also, the producers have said that it was absolutely vital for Flight 316 to replicate Flight 815 as closely as possible and that if they failed to replicate Flight 815 that there could be side-effects. Flight 815 carried a pregnant woman to the island, while Flight 316 did not. Perhaps this is the root cause why women die while giving birth on the island. I realize that Danielle gave birth to Alex on the island after this point, but so did Claire give birth to Aaron. As of Season 6, we see that Danielle and Claire are very similar and perhaps they both have a special ability that allows them to give birth. We also saw "Littleton" and "Rou..." (probably Rousseau) on Jacob's wall, so maybe these two survived their pregnancies due to being a candidate at the time (they are both crossed out now).

Claire and Rousseau don't have any type of special ability. They just conceived off the island. Only the women who conceive on the island and stay there through their pregnancy died. That is why Sun was in danger of dying.

Jacob

Pregnancies fail if the baby was conceived on the island, because Jacob hand-picks every person that is brought to the island. They babies are simply not allowed to be born. They would not serve Jacob's purpose.

I was watching "One of Us," a Juliet flashback episode from Season 3. In this episode Juliet tells Jack and Kate that women can't give birth on the island because the mother's body turns on the pregnancy and treats it as a "foreign invader."

I believe the man in black is the “foreign invader,” hoping to spread the same sickness to these babies that apparently has taken over Sayid. Because of this, Jacob kills the fetus to avoid evil spreading on the island, and potentially into the world.

The reason Claire was able to give birth to Aaron and the reason Juliet successfully delivered Ethan in “LaFleur” was because Jacob looked at both of them as candidates. If you look at the cave wall in “The Substitute,” both Littleton and Goodspeed are written on the wall, proving they were once candidates

Babies are born with traits similar to the Man in Black. It is the mother's nurture amongst other things that introduces the 'humanity' aspects. MiB's influence on babies and their development will therefore be easier. Since Jacobs traits are more on the humanitarian side, he either prevents or the rules prevent births on the island. Doesn't give either side of the tussle an unfair advantage. Those who have had successful births have either overcome the 'Jacob' influence by some means(drugs, favor, candidacy etc) to achieve this. With Jacob dead and MiB's influence on the ascendancy births may be possible on the island, unless of course the rules exist with or without Jacob and MiB. Then, pregnancies will still face difficulties

Jacob prevents babies because MiB can possess them

The island is home of the Source, which is a place of birth AND death.
MiB can appear like those who have died, such as Christian, Locke, Yemi, Alex, and Isabella.
Christian, Locke, Yemi, and Alex all had their bodies on the island when MiB appeared as them.
Isabella's body was not on the island, but MiB had her cross while he appeared as her, which he later gave back to Richard. Maybe prized personal possessions work fine if there is no body.
- Keep in mind that when Jack was coming back to the island and needed to recreate flight 815, he obviously didn't have his father's body, but Eloise said his shoes would work fine.
The smoke monster can possess those who were born on the island.
Also, if the Sickness has to do with the smoke monster corrupting people (such as Claire, Sayid, and possibly Rousseau), then the vaccine given to babies to somehow prevent them from being corrupted and later possessed by MiB.
The reason why Alex, Ethan, and Aaron did not die at birth was because they were "good" and Jacob chose them to become Others. Alex and Ethan both became Others. The Others planned on keeping Aaron, but Alex let Claire escape the Others before she gave birth.