turkey baster pregnancy movies

October 20, 2006 3:49 AM

How do you get pregnant with a turkey baster?

You always see in movies and whatnot people using a turkey baster to get pregnant. I figure this is some old fashioned wives' tale type thing. What is it supposed to do?

posted by BigBrownBear to society & culture (19 comments total)

It's like a large eye dropper - a means of inserting semen, perhaps harvested from a friend.
posted by b33j at 3:51 AM on October 20, 2006

Yeah, it's just the cheapskate method of non-coital insemination.

Did you think it meant that the turkey baster itself could get you preggers?!
posted by jack_mo at 3:58 AM on October 20, 2006

Turkey Baster Method of insemination.
posted by needs more cowbell at 5:27 AM on October 20, 2006

Again, I don’t know what movies you’ve been watching, but penetrative heterosexual sex as a means of getting pregnant still predominates in my media consumption. If Jamie Zawinski is to be believed, though, it just functions as a way to insert the semen.
posted by Aidan Kehoe at 5:34 AM on October 20, 2006

One way is to use it to prepare a turkey, feed the boyfriend a nice dinner, and subsequently lure him into bed. Although this makes it an indirect accessory in the procreation effort, technically, it would be involved in the process!

Actually, it's kind of the wrong tool. A small disposable plastic syringe is more appropriate to the volume of semen usually produced (a teaspoon or two), and it is more suited to the viscocity of the fluid involved.
posted by FauxScot at 5:59 AM on October 20, 2006

You watched Pink Flamingos, didn't you?
What were you thinking?
posted by zerokey at 6:05 AM on October 20, 2006

A lot of people (me and my friends) use "turkey baster" as slang for in vitro.
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:25 AM on October 20, 2006

The Mommy and the Daddy and the turkey baster all love each other very, very much. When the Mommy and the Daddy are married, they lay together in bed and the Daddy fills the turkey baster with special seeds that make babies, and then he puts the turkey baster inside the Mommy's vagina and squirts it and a baby starts growing inside the Mommy.
posted by iconomy at 6:26 AM on October 20, 2006 [7 favorites]

My partner and I just got pregnant via the "turkey baster" method. The "turkey baster" part is misleading though. With the very small volume of semen that is used each time, the huge surface area of a turkey baster would just waste most if not all of it. What is generally meant when people refer to the turkey baster method is an oral medicine syringe. There are oral medicine feeders that are shaped like turkey basters (with a bulb at the end that you squeze and release) but those are not recommended, as some of the semen will get sucked up into the bulb and will be wasted, never mind the hygiene issues of not being able to clean in there. Yuck. So, what is typically used is the syringe type, with a plunger that you pull back and push in.

Once out of the body (or unfrozen) sperm doesn't actually last that long. So the full syringe has to be held close to the body to keep it warm until it is needed. Fresh sperm out of the body has about 1/2 hour, so you have to move fast. So you get home with the semen, then you and your partner have 30 minutes - traveling time to get aroused, insert the semen, and have an orgasm. This last part can be the hardest, but gives the sperm a much much better chance of getting to where it needs to go. You do this as many times during your cycle (timed close to ovulation) as you can, and you have about the same chances of impregnating as a het couple.

Anything else?
posted by arcticwoman at 7:48 AM on October 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

Sperm, once out of the body (or unfrozen), doesn't actually ....
posted by arcticwoman at 7:50 AM on October 20, 2006

(I think I said it before, but in case I forgot, congrats to you & yr SO arcticwoman!)
posted by raedyn at 7:58 AM on October 20, 2006

Thanks for the congrats, Raedyn, but I miscarried. Oh well, at least I know my parts work... and at least I can drink away the pain ;) We'll be trying again in a couple of months.
posted by arcticwoman at 8:17 AM on October 20, 2006

d'oh. I should have remembered that. Love to you.
/taking it to e-mail.
posted by raedyn at 8:44 AM on October 20, 2006

I actually saw an interview once, with some glbt seniors. A woman claimed that, in the pre-Stonewall days, lesbians often got themselves pregnant with turkey basters, filled with donations from gay friends.

Of course the mechanics work. What blew my mind was the notion that this was done often. My recollection of those times may be excessively naive and colored by my midwestern background, but I recall single mothers being rather scorned back then.
posted by Goofyy at 9:05 AM on October 20, 2006

(They were — by much of the mainstream, at least — but then, so were lesbians.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:58 AM on October 20, 2006

I know someone who used an eyedropper, placing the sperm into a diaphragm, and then inserting the diaphragm. And then, I assume, positioning herself upside down for a while.
posted by umbú at 12:27 PM on October 20, 2006

Not to snark at CunningLinguist, but "turkey baster" isn't really accurate slang for in vitro fertilization ("IVF"). In IVF fertilization take place outside the body (in a petri dish); the turkey baster method is intrauterine (or "artificial") insemination ("IUI"). Generally when people I know refer to the turkey baster they are consciously referring to IUI rather than the more invasive and expensive IVF.

Maybe that's just among my crowd which seems to be pregnancy and fertility obsessed.
posted by The Bellman at 12:30 PM on October 20, 2006

You can't do IUI with a turkey baster or the like. Injecting sperm directly into the uterus (hence "intrauterine") requires going through the cervix, which is done with a flexible catheter. Some people call the turkey baster deal "IVI" (intravaginal insemination), though.
posted by needs more cowbell at 1:27 PM on October 20, 2006

Well, you can't do an IUI, specifically, with a turkey baster/syringe/eyedropper/marinade injector, but you can do an "artificial insemination." Given that many people who are unfamiliar with the specifics of the procedure think that it's simply squirting some semen into a woman's vagina with a medical tool in the hopes that doing so will be more effective than the "natural" method, the traction of the turkey baster idea in conjunction with mechanical means of semen delivery makes some sense.
posted by Dreama at 2:20 PM on October 20, 2006