My theory to why pregnancies are not coming to term on the island:
The baby inside the mother is growing at a different rate than the mother is growing the uterus/womb for the baby.
How:
- We already know that the natives on the island either don’t age or have longer lives so it could be the baby has that life extension and grows much slower which cases the complication. This would mean the “natives” aren’t actually natives or born on the island.
- Or the baby may not be effected at all and the baby is growing too fast.
The baby could not be affected by the aging within the womb or
Looks like it got cut off there…
I’m not sure how that would work. Admittedly, I’m not a doctor, but it would seem that if the baby was growing/aging more slowly (as some people on the island apparently do), then the mother might have complications because of an abnormally extended pregnancy, but it seems like they’re dying before even a normal pregnancy term would come to pass, rather than it being too long and drawn out.
Now that I say that, I can’t actually think of any specific examples of mothers who have died that we’ve seen, but I’m pretty sure Juliet mentioned that in her 3 years there she had practiced on several (don’t remember how many) and failed each time. This would tend to suggest that their terms were not abnormally long.
The babies growing too fast seems like it shouldn’t be a huge problem either, at least for the mothers, since at worst they would have a premature birth (as measured by a normal pregnancy term) and even if that negatively affected the baby’s development I don’t know why it would affect the mother.
Although I do agree with you that the explanation is probably closely related to the aging discrepancy and/or the island’s magical healing properties (which I think are probably the same underlying thing), of course I have to go for the weirder theories.
So, I suggest that Jacob (or some other island force) is responsible for “terminating” the pregnancies and preventing further ones of the same genetic makeup by killing the mother. It might do this because it needs and is looking for children with certain special properties, and so it tests all potential kids and if they fail the test (pre-brith) it makes sure the adults try with a different genetic combination next time by killing the mother.
In the same breath where Ben kept claiming “I was born on this island” he also kept saying “I’m one of the last”. This makes me wonder if the childbirth problem didn’t exist before Ben. Since Ben’s mother died in childbirth when she was seven months pregnant (the beginning of the third trimester), is that why no women can make it to the third trimester now? Is the childbirth problem created by Ben? If so, it would be similar to the way Ben says everyone has been healing faster since Locke arrived on the island. If Locke brought healing to the island, did Ben bring death?
Kim Yun-Jin, one of the stars of Lost, is coming out with a book in which she complains about racial discrimination in hollywood:
http://partypooper.blogs.com/partypooper/2007/05/kim_yunjin_crie.html
What about Ben’s so called daughter, Alex. Ben can’t be her father..so why has he raised her as his own??and she WAS born on the island..Why do you think she was taken/kept from her mother..and why won’t Ben kill her?? Even though she has betrayed him multiple times??any suggestions??