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A recent study led by Providence resident Jan Fosterman has revealed that infants cannot breathe under water.
“While in the womb, unborn babies are submerged in viscous, amniotic fluid and are able to grow and prosper,” said Fosterman. “Thus, I hypothesized that these slimy, little shit machines that I squeezed out could maintain similar abilities after being born. I then tested my hypothesis on these womb leeches.”
Fosterman, a single mother of octuplets, carried out the experiment in “the Fosterman laboratory for Child Development,” which is also known as a crusty bathroom in the back of her Hope Street duplex.
“The set up for the experiment was really quite ingenious, if I do say so myself,” said Fosterman. “For the control group, I took one of the eight subjects and left him sleeping in his crib. For the experimental group, I took another one of the subjects and slowly submerged him in an industrial-sized water tank until his dumb, stupid, whiny, baby mouth stopped sucking in air.”
Fosterman repeated the process by successively shifting members of the control group into the experimental group until she was “no longer an octomom.”
“I did introduce some variables to the experiment, however,” said Fosterman. “Sometimes I would physically submerge the subject myself, and other times I would tie 20 pound cinderblocks to its tiny baby feet. Then I would go out to the club to get my drink on, and when I returned the results remained the same. I really thought these babies were going to be like little humpback whales but I guess you can’t win ‘em all. That’s just science.”
Fosterman initially had trouble finding the courage to carry out such a “groundbreaking” experiment, but found it following an incident in which “one of those weird-faced, crying, uterine squatters, sorry, subjects vomited on me right before this guy Randy was supposed to have unprotected sex with me in a porta-potty at a Chris Brown concert. Well, let’s just say after the first trial, it’s not that hard.”
When asked about the moral and ethical complications of such a study, Fosterman replied, “Legally, they are my children, but when conducting a study such as this, one must avoid morals and ethics and the law at all costs. One must strive for impartiality and an exacting, methodical, scientific coldness that can only develop when one lives life in a perpetual waking nightmare surrounded by eight screaming black-holes of financial and psychological ruin.”
Moving forward, Fosterman plans to conduct another study, over the next 9 months, to see if infants in the womb can subsist on a diet of nothing but Jack Daniels and Eggo waffles. She believes they can.
