This is a doll. But she’s not made for child’s play

Ever longed for a baby – without the dirty nappies? Ever dreamt of cradling a newborn – without the broken sleep? Ever pined for a child of your own – without the cost of actually raising one? Well, reborn dolls are for you. Mesmerising, intriguing and for some, deeply creepy, “reborns” are hyper-realistic dolls, painstakingly handcrafted to resemble flesh-and-blood babies, complete with fat rolls, inscrutable expressions and silky hair. They are dolls, but this isn’t child’s play, unless you are David Cronenberg.

Lifelike porcelain dolls date back to the 1800s and were regarded as both toys and art, but the “reborn” phenomenon is thought to have first surfaced in the mid-1990s. An article in The New York Times, in 2005, described the market as something of “a secret society”. More recently, in Brazil, a TikTok clip of a woman taking her “newborn baby” to hospital during a “medical emergency” got more than 16 million views and sparked proposals to ban people with such dolls from seeking public healthcare. A cursory search on the internet brings up countless “birthing” videos, where people receiving a new reborn ceremonially unbox the doll, some wrapped in their own silicone “wombs”.

There are also reborns with disabilities: I even came across a TikTok clip featuring terrifyingly realistic conjoined twin reborns, complete with a fused skull. Watching the creator wrap the infants’ head in bubble wrap, prior to posting, was pure PTSD. “These twins are heavy!” she says. “I think they weigh, like, nine pounds!”

Reborns are popular in Australia, too. “There are many reasons people want a reborn doll,” says Annette Kravchenko, owner of Aussie Reborn Supplies in Queensland. “There are young children who want a lifelike baby of their own, older women who miss being a mum, and women who can’t have kids.” Some people with anxiety, including older women with dementia, find cuddling a “baby” comforting. “Some women have nurturing instincts that they can’t otherwise satisfy,” says Kravchenko.

Reborns are often used in therapy to overcome grief or the trauma associated with abuse. “We’ve had women come to us who’ve been told to get a reborn doll by their psychologists,” Kravchenko continues. There are even memorial reborns. “Mothers who’ve lost their babies send us a photo of their deceased child and we make a doll based on that. Same weight, same look. We’ve even made stillborn dolls.” Some clients fill their reborn with the ashes of their late baby. “It can be like visiting the grave for them.”

Kravchenko, 50, has been making reborns for 25 years. “It starts with a vinyl or silicone doll,” she says. “We paint them with 20 layers, so it gets that fine, translucent look.” The dolls are then customised, with individually rooted hair (premium mohair or alpaca), ultra-fine painted veins, glass or acrylic eyes in any colour or shape. Tiny scratches can be applied, together with milia, the small, pearly-white bumps that often appear on a newborn’s nose. Glass bead weights can be inserted into the doll according to its “age”, together with breather boxes and heartbeats.

A high-end reborn can take between six weeks to make and cost anywhere between a couple of hundred dollars to upwards of $6000. Virtually any facial expression can be reproduced, including crying babies. Not surprisingly, Kravchenko says “sleeping newborns” are the most popular.

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