Reproduction

This article is about human pregnancy and babies. For older children, see Children.

Reproduction is the means by which human babies are created.

Note: Due to the continuous nature of the subject matter, this page covers from conception to the age of three.

Acquisition

Babies can be obtained via several different methods:

• Choosing them as a starting colonist via the scenario system.
• Natural reproduction, through pregnancy.
• Assisted reproduction, through surrogacy or growth vats.
• Purchasing them from slavers.^{[Can babies be bought?]}
• Receiving them from quests and events. Babies of any faction can be adopted instantly to the colony, without angering them.

Note that with the exception of the first point, these methods become unavailable if "Disable children" is toggled on in the storyteller settings.

Natural reproduction

Pawns in romantic relationships have a chance to get pregnant when they initiate lovin'. Note that pawns must share a two-person bed, bedroll, or sleeping spot at the same time to initate lovin'. The Sleeping Alone debuff only checks if 2 pawns are assigned the same bed; they don't need to sleep at the same time or ever engage in lovin' to avoid it.

Chance

The prospective parents' chance of successfully reproducing is primarily controlled by their Fertility stat. The player has three options to adjust pregnancy rates from Lovin' in any relationship. By opening the social tab, to the right of a Lover, Fiancee, or Spouse, you can see a button that lets you change the couple's approach for having kids.

	Normal (Default)	x1 pregnancy chance.
	Avoid pregnancy	x0.25 pregnancy chance.
	Try for baby	x4 pregnancy chance.

Therefore, the total chance of pregnancy in one relationship is likely:

Pregnancy chance per relationship = Mother's fertility x Father's fertility x Reproductive Approach x Times Lovin'

The actual chance that a pair of pawns will do Lovin' each night varies, but it requires them to share the same bed and sleep at the same time. Their chance of Lovin' varies by age, as seen in this chart. The low libido and high libido genes will also alter this. There have been reports that colonist mood and opinions of each other also influence the chance of doing Lovin'.

Pregnancy

Pregnancy lasts for 18 days, broken into three 6-day trimesters. The player will receive a notification when the pregnancy starts and when it progresses from one trimester to the next. The pregnant pawn will gain penalties to movement, manipulation, and hunger rate, increasing each trimester as seen in the chart below. Other than the statistical penalties, pregnant pawns have no restrictions on the activities they pursue.

If the mother is in poor health, such as Malnutrition, she might suffer a miscarriage.^[Details]

Stage	Effects
First trimester	Hunger rate offset: +10%
Second trimester	Moving: −10% Manipulation: −5% Hunger rate offset: +30%
Third trimester	Moving: −50% Manipulation: −10% Hunger rate offset: +50%

During the first trimester, a pawn will gain the New pregnancy moodlet, which can either be positive or negative direction: +3 I'm pregnant! It makes me happy., or −3 I'm pregnant and not very happy about it. When the pawn is not happy about their pregnancy, you can perform an operation to end their pregnancy This will result in a mood buff of +5 I'm relieved I'm not pregnant any more. Throughout their pregnancy, they will also occasionally gain mood buffs or debuffs due to hormone-induced mood swings, which includes the third trimester.^{[Detail needed]} Mood swings are visible in the Health tab as a condition affecting the brain. They vary in severity, direction, and duration, appearing as: "Pregnancy Mood (<duration>, <type>)" with the description This common side effect of pregnancy represents a rising and falling mood caused by unbalanced hormones. Accompanying this, the pawn will get a positive or negative moodlet labeled Pregnancy mood <type>. Mood swings are short-lived, with the longest duration seen so far being 10 hours.

Types of Mood swings:

• −14 Pregnancy mood collapse mood
• −8 Pregnancy mood down mood
• 4 Pregnancy mood up mood
• 8 Pregnancy mood high mood

Pregnant pawns may also receive the "morning sickness" condition, which lasts 4 to 8 in-game hours. Along with health effects, they will gain the −3 mood debuff Sick.

Morning sickness:

• Consciousness: ×0.8
• Moving: ×0.9
• Manipulation: ×0.9
• Vomiting MTB: 1.8 hours

Note that Pawns in the character selection menu can begin the game already pregnant.

Assisted reproduction

Science enables new methods for obtaining babies. After Fertility Procedures has been researched, you can extract ova from female pawns and fertilize them to form an embryo, for use in surrogate pregnancies or vat-grown babies.

Both methods require extracting an ovum from a fertile female pawn, be they colonist, prisoner, or slave, through a medical operation in the pawn's Health tab: "Extract ovum for IVF". The operation requires one of any type of medicine and a doctor, although it is a relatively easy surgery, with a 500% multiplier on success, and 0% chance of death on failure.

The ovum may then be fertilized by a fertile male colonist or slave (but not a prisoner or guest) to produce an embryo. As long as the male pawn's fertility is above 0% this will be successful^[Verify]. The resulting embryo can then be implanted in female pawns (may be prisoner, colonist, or slave) to initiate a pregnancy, placed in a growth vat, or sold.

Surrogacy

With the Fertility Procedures research, you can create embryos. They can then be implanted into a pawn for a chance for the pawn to become pregnant. The chance of success depends on the surrogate's own Fertility.

Even if they did not supply the ovum, the surrogate will be considered the birth mother. Otherwise, it will act as a regular pregnancy.^[Verify]. A pawn born this way will consider both their surrogate and genetic mother as the pawn's parents in terms of social opinions.

Growth vats

See also: Growth vat

Growth vats are a complete alternative to pregnancy. They require the Growth vats research to make, as well as Fertility Procedures, and two pawns with > 0% Fertility to actually create embryos.

Growth vats allow an embryo to be born in 9 days, half the time of a natural pregnancy. Active vats must be given a constant supply of 200 W of power and 6 nutrition per day - or around 6.5 simple meals per day - to ensure survival of the fetus. If lacking either, then the fetus will undergo biostarvation, increasing by 50% per day. If biostarvation reaches 100%, the fetus will be destroyed.

Otherwise, growth vat births always have a quality of 70%, which affects the chance of the baby being born healthy. On practice, per 100 birth there will be 2 dead and 10 sick. However, there are benefits to this method: as it avoids natural birth, the mother won't be weighed down, and there is no risk of them dying.

Birth

Your first warning for a pawn's upcoming childbirth comes during a pawn's pregnancy: the player will receive one notification when the mother hits the third trimester about "<Colonist>'s baby prep", which explains all the steps you can take to help the mother give birth successfully. Besides preparing a location and doctor for the birth, this notification reminds you to prepare a food source for the baby and build them a crib. Labor will happen roughly 6 days after, starting with a notification of "<Colonist> in labor!".

Once labor begins, the birthing procedure can be initiated by clicking on the mother, and selecting the "Begin birth" option. This allows the player to select participants and a Doctor, much like Ideology's rituals. The procedure will take place at a bed or sleeping spot, chosen automatically (preferring medical beds) if the mother is not already in bed. All of these choices have an effect on the birth's quality, which affects the chance that the mother and baby will come out of childbirth alive and healthy. You can view the exact factors and their influence in the Quality section below. The expected duration of this operation is variable, but will end once the baby has been born or mother has died.

Labor

The progress of labor can be tracked in the mother's health tab. Labor begins with contractions, different stages of dilation that change randomly over time, with all adding various amounts of pain and restrictions on movement for the mother. Many stages will incapacitate her, so even before the childbirth operation begins, it is important to bring her to a bed. When the childbirth operation has proceeded for a while, you will receive a small notification saying "<mother>'s labor has entered the final stage", and the labor will progress to the final "pushing" stage.

Stages of labor:

• dilation, mild: pain +25%, moving x40%
• dilation, intense: pain +50%, moving x20%
• dilation, debilitating: pain +85%, moving x0%
• pushing: pain +85%, moving x0%

Once the childbirth procedure has begun, any spectating loved ones may socialize with each other, but the doctor and mother will be focused on their tasks. Spectators and the doctors can leave if needed, by selecting a pawn and then pressing the "Leave child birth" option. Finally, you can cancel the birth operation by selecting any of the involved pawns and then selecting the "Cancel child birth" option, which allows you to restart childbirth later.

Quality

When starting the child birth procedure, a screen will show you the expected quality of the birth, determined by (descending order of influence):

• Age of the mother: The mother has a natural +50% quality bonus between ages 20-30. Outside this range, the bonus drops. See the graph below.
• Doctor's medical skill: Can range from 0-25%. Starting at 0% with skill level 1 and increasing by 1.25% every level, up to a maximum of 25% at skill level 20.
• Room cleanliness: Cleanliness can range from 0-0.6, giving 0-10% in quality bonuses.
• Other factors, gives up to 5% each:
  • Loved one present: The presence of someone that the mother considers a friend or more gives +5% quality, with no stacking for multiple friends or a better friend. By default, the father will be selected to be present. If the doctor performing the operation is a friend, they will count towards this bonus too, and forcing father to participate in addition to doctor will give nothing.
  • Indoors: If inside, the quality gains +5%.
  • Bed health effects: Contributes up to 5%, with things like bed quality, or a hospital bed influencing this stat. A bed rating of 5 guarantees a quality bonus of +5%.

Birth quality is determined at the moment of the baby's birth; allowing the doctor or loved ones to leave, or having the room grow dirty, has an effect on birth quality.

Additional quality from Mother's age
	14 yrs: +0% 15 yrs: +30% 20 yrs: +50% 30 yrs: +50% 40 yrs: +30% 65 yrs: +0% Note: Bonus is linearly interpolated between these points

Outcomes

Depending on the quality, the baby can be born healthy or sickly, or they may die during birth, also known as being stillborn. At lower qualities, there is also a chance that the mother can die during childbirth. The quality needs to be >90% for the best possible outcomes. Since the probability of a bad outcome increases drastically below 20% birth quality, it's strongly recommended to provide at least the bare necessities, such as a bed indoors, as even a few percent above 0% in birth quality will contribute massively to the outcome.

Birth Outcome Chance	Mother Death Chance

You will receive a notification when the birth is complete, and the baby will appear on an adjacent tile. If the baby was born alive, a pawn with the Childcare work enabled can be instructed to either move the baby to a safe space, or to deliver it to the mother for breastfeeding. The baby will be born hungry, with a mood penalty of −6.^{[Thought Template]}

If your baby was healthy, the notification is "Healthy child birth", and it gives you 24 hours to choose a name for the baby. You can also name stillborn babies via the stillborn notification.^{[Notification title?]}

These are only time where you can completely customize the baby's first and last names, and you additionally can add an optional nickname. The game will suggest the mother and father's last names on this screen, and provide random suggestions for the other names. Until then, the baby's name is temporary, and called "Baby <Mother's last name>". The baby will also receive the Childhood title "Newborn", and belong to the mother's faction. The baby's parents will receive a 15-day mood boost that "<Baby> was born healthy" +8.

If the baby is born sick, they are affected by a form of infant illness, which can start at a variable intensity. If left untreated before 10 days is up, the baby dies, but if it lives through 10 days after birth, the illness will no longer affect the baby. You will also get the chance to name your baby.

If the baby is stillborn, then the mother and father will experience a negative moodlet. If a surrogate mother is used, the biological mother will receive the moodlet.

If the mother survived childbirth, she will remain in bed, incapacitated by exhaustion (Postpartum exhaustion) for 16 hours. She'll no longer feel any pain from childbirth, but won't be able to move. However, if another pawn delivers her baby to her, she can begin breastfeeding.

Lactation

The condition of being able to breastfeed a baby. The breasts are actively producing and storing milk. The lactating state begins when a mother gives birth, and continues indefinitely as long as she breastfeeds a baby at least once every 10 days. People who are lactating will have a harder time becoming pregnant.

— Description

Upon a successful natural childbirth, the birthing mother will begin lactating. A lactating pawn can breastfeed babies, even if not their own. Lactation lasts indefinitely, but stops after 10 days of not breastfeeding a baby or if the pawn is malnourished with a MTB of 4 hours so roughly stopping at 40% malnutrition. If a lactating pawn is sent on a pawn lending quest, the 10-day timer will tick down unless they are sent along with a baby or babies that they can feed.

While lactating, the pawn gains a milk fullness stat, which starts at 100%. When it is above 0%, a pawn can breastfeed any baby, reducing milk accordingly. If it is below 100%, then the mother's Food Consumption increases. Consumption increases by up to +0.5 nutrition per day, for a total of 2.1 nutrition per day, until milk is full. For reference, 1 simple meal is 0.9 nutrition. The increased hunger scales with milk regeneration rate, which decreases as the pawn gets hungry.

Hunger Level	Malnourished	Ravenously hungry	Hungry	Full
Milk Regeneration	0%	25%	50%	100%
Extra Nutrition Per Day	0	0.13	0.25	0.5

Lactation also multiplies Fertility by ×5%, meaning the mother is very unlikely to get pregnant by any natural means.

Heredity

See also: Genes

A compact chart of familial pawn relationships and its effects on inbreeding. Redundant relations have been hidden for simplicity.

When an embryo is conceived, it will inherit some of the genes of both parents. During a mother's pregnancy, you can view her child's genes by going to her Health tab and selecting the information button for her pregnancy. The genetics section will list all genes that her child has inherited.

Genes which can be passed down come from the germline DNA, and are called germline genes. Pawns may modify themselves with xenogenes, but as it's not part of a pawn's germline DNA, it cannot be passed down. If a germline gene is only present in one parent, it has a small chance to be passed down.^{[What's the chance?]} However if an germline gene is present in both parents, it will always be passed down.

Generally, all pawns will have at least one hair color and skin color germline gene. Offspring will always pick one hair color and skin color germline gene from their parents. If no hair/skin color germline gene can be found in either parent, such as if they were two highmates, a random hair/skin color germline gene will be picked from the natural list of hair/skin colors instead.

If a pawn has multiple cosmetic genes within a category, like body type, one random gene will override the others. This will be the gene represented on the pawn. For non-cosmetic genes within a category there is a fixed priority for overrides, usually favored towards the negative variations. For example, an awful shooting aptitude will override all other shooting aptitudes. Xenogenes will always take priority over germline genes. Thus, even though the Slow runner germline gene overrides their Fast runner germline gene, the Fast runner xenogene will override the Slow runner germline gene. Note that overridden germline genes can still be passed down as normal.

Inbreeding

If a child is born from an incestuous relationship, there's a risk of them becoming inbred. The likelihood of this is modelled proportionally to the pawns' coefficient of relationship, though it is largely simplified.

As a general rule, the risk is 80% for first-degree, 40% for second-degree, and 10% for third-degree relatives; however some exceptions apply, an example being 20% for cousins. Many fourth-degree relationships and beyond are simply referred to as "Kin". Kin relationships pose no risk for inbreeding, despite being considered incestuous. If two pawns are related in more ways than one, such as being both parent/child (80%) and grandparent/grandchild (40%), the highest number always takes priority when calculating inbreeding. Pawns being inbred will not directly increase this number, but since inbred is a gene it will follow the same rules of gene inheritance as all other genes.

It's possible to check for the inbred gene after conception by using the "Inspect baby genes..." button on the pregnant pawn or the embryo. The outcome of a pregnancy isn't affected by inbreeding, but should the baby be born, the game will display an additional line in the birth results: The baby shows signs of genetic abnormalities due to inbreeding.

Inbred	Complexity: +1 Metabolic efficiency: −2 Forced Trait: Slow learner Fertility: ×50% Immunity gain speed: ×85%

The risk of inbreeding goes as follows, higher numbers taking priority over lower ones:

Relation	Inbreeding risk	Coefficient of relationship
Parent/Sibling/Child	80%	50%
Grandparent/Aunt/Uncle/Niece/Nephew/Halfsibling/Grandchild	40%	25%
Halfniece/Halfnephew	40%	12.5%
Cousin	20%	12.5%
G. grandparent/Grandaunt/Granduncle/Grandniece/Grandnephew/G. grandchild	10%	12.5%
Half grandniece/Half grandnephew/Cousin once removed	10%	6.25%
Second cousin	10%	3.125%
Birth parent/Kin	0%	N/A

Fertility

See also: Fertility

Fertility is the main pawn stat affecting pregnancy chances, acting as a percentage multiplier on the chance of getting pregnant naturally or through an ovum implantation. Natural pregnancy chance is equally dependent on the fertility of both partners. Additionally, fertility must be above 0% to extract a pawn's ovum or to fertilize the ovum into an embryo.

This stat is affected by a variety of factors, such as age, genes, and contraceptives. Age is the baseline for fertility, changing slowly for each colonist over time, and at a different rate by pawn gender. Genes provide an additional multiplier on fertility. Contraceptives instantly bring fertility to 0%, overriding other fertility factors.

For baseline humans without fertility-modifying genes, both men and women start becoming fertile after age 14; but regardless of fertility, pawns can't participate in reproduction until they are 16. Fertility increases differently by gender. Women's fertility increases until age 20, but starts dropping at age 28 until it reaches 0% at age 50. Men's fertility increases until age 18, but starts dropping at age 50 until it's 0% at age 90.

Fertility

Genes affect fertility in direct and indirect ways. There are two direct effects: the Fertile gene doubles fertility and the Sterile gene completely nullifies it. The Ageless gene prevents aging entirely, which prevents fertility loss. Age Reversal also has a fully restorative effect on fertility. Even a completely infertile pawn (due to age) can start reproduction again.

Contraceptives

There are many ways to manually change the likelihood of natural pregnancy. The simplest way in the game to prevent pregnancy is to not give pawns a double bed to themselves. However, it deprives them of the mood bonuses of Lovin' in the first place. By changing a couple's Reproductive Approach "Avoid pregnancy" in the social tab, pregnancy rate will be reduced by −75%, but still gives Lovin' at the same rate. Lactation, from having given birth before, gives a ×5% multiplier to Fertility.

A more stable way to prevent pregnancy is available from the Fertility Procedures research. This gives access to multiple operations, reversible or permanent, to prevent and stop pregnancies. These surgeries can be applied to any pawn age 16 and up, and can be performed even if the pawn is already infertile.

IUD

This is a method of preventing pregnancies that lasts indefinitely but is reversible. You can stop a female pawn from becoming pregnant with the "Implant IUD" medical operation, which has a base 100% success chance and no chance of pawn death upon failure. The operation requires 1 Medicine of any type and will anesthetize the pawn. The IUD lasts indefinitely and can be seen in the pawn's Health tab, but you can later remove it through the "Remove IUD" medical operation for 1 Medicine of Industrial quality or better. Women may embark with IUDs already implanted. If either of these operations is botched, the patient will become permanently sterile.

Implanted IUDs also stop pregnancies in the first trimester, an alternative to the Terminate Pregnancy operation.

Vasectomy

This is another method of preventing pregnancies that lasts indefinitely but is reversible. You can stop a male pawn from impregnating others with the "Perform vasectomy" medical operation, which also has a base 100% success chance with no chance of pawn death upon failure. The vasectomy lasts indefinitely, with the operation requiring 1 Medicine of any type. You can later remove it through the "Reverse vasectomy" medical operation, also for and 1 Medicine of any type.^{[Industrial only?]} Men may embark with the operation already performed.^[Verify] If either of these operations is botched, the patient will become permanently sterile. Chance of permanent sterilization during vasectomy reversal is higher than IUD's removal.

Tubal ligation

This permanently stops a female pawn from being able to reproduce. "Perform tubal ligation" is a medical operation requiring 1 Medicine of any type. The surgery success chance is 100% and there is no chance of pawn death upon failure. The operation is irreversable.

Neither of the IUD, Vasectomy and Tubal Ligation will be "healed" by luciferium, bioregeneration cycle and by applying healing or resurrection mech serum.

Termination

If the pawn has already become pregnant past the first trimester, the only option left is to terminate the pregnancy. This can be achieved through the medical operation "Terminate pregnancy" requiring 2 Medicine ^{[What quality?]} and 1,500 ticks (25 secs) of work, after which the pawn will no longer be pregnant. There is a 2% of death if this operation fails, but a ×2 success chance factor. Note that the maximum success chance still applies, resulting in a 0.04% chance of death with max surgery success.

This operation can upset the affected pawn. Depending on the trimester of the pregnancy, a moodlet of −5 for the first, −10 for the second, and −20 for the third will occur, lasting for 10 days. If a pawn was not happy about the pregnancy, they will gain a +5 moodlet instead. If performed on another faction's pawn, it is considered a violation and will result in loss of goodwill.

This is the only fertility procedure that does not require the Fertility Procedures research.

Pregnancy analysis

Growth vats are the "best" way to create your own children, with it being faster, having no risk to the mother, and able to be done with low Fertility. However, the nutrition cost is non-negligible. The vats themselves cost some steel, components, and research to make.

If both pawns are reasonably young, fertile, and sleeping at the same time, then pregnancy will be quite common; it is easy to get pawns pregnant, if you wanted them to.

Babies

The end result of pregnancy is a human baby. Babies are small, helpless creatures that cannot walk or do anything by themselves. They only have three basic needs: food, sleep, and play.

Babies are born with no traits or skills: these develop during childhood Growth Moments. They also have no ideoligion . Unless they have temporary health effects from being born sick, they have no health conditions, with every health stat at 100%, except for Moving, which is at 0%.

The baby life stage lasts for ages 0-2, with newborn ages tracked in days and quadrums rather than years. Once a baby turns 3, they become a child, and on their 3rd birthday you can make special choices for how they will develop further. Under the default storyteller settings, babies will age 4x faster than normal, so the biological age of the baby is not how many days/quadrums they have actually been alive. Growth vats can speed up a baby's growth by 20x that of an adult, or 5x faster than default. Depending on the growth vat precept colonists may be sad about their baby being, or not being, in a growth vat. Using a growth vat seems to have no ill effects on a baby or its development, at least until it exits the baby stage.^{[Not thoroughly tested]}

If a baby is left on the ground, any colonist (even those incapable of childcare or hauling) can try to bring the baby somewhere safe, like an available crib. Usually a colonist will quickly try to do this automatically. If you draft a colonist while they are carrying a baby, you'll receive a pop-up warning that your colonist is carrying a baby while drafted. If you undraft and redraft the colonist, they will drop the baby.

Artificial body parts cannot be applied to babies, but Xenogerms can be. Babies cannot be ordered to apply xenogerms by selecting them and right-clicking on the xenogerm, as they cannot walk. Players must instead place an order for it on the health tab.

Food

See also: Saturation

Babies need less nutrition to become full, but their hunger rate is adjusted with it to require food twice a day. Since babies cannot eat anything by themselves, pawns assigned to childcare will help feed them. The feeding process is fairly slow when compared to adult eating.

They can only be fed in one of following ways:

• Breastfeeding from any lactating pawn, even those not their mother.
• Cooking and feeding them baby food, produced at a campfire or stove from vegetable ingredients.
• Feeding them animal milk or insect jelly.

Of these, breastfeeding is usually the easiest. Unlike other foods, which feed in bursts only once the food has been consumed, breastfeeding will gradually increase the food bar. This allows the breastfeeding pawn to pause at any point, whilst also not wasting excess food. Usually, a pawn will sit down to breastfeed, continuing until the baby is full or the pawn is out of milk.

You can control what foods the baby can eat and who will try to feed the baby in the baby's "Feeding" tab. By default, the mother will be set to Urgent, with all other pawns set to Childcare. If a pawn is set to childcare, that does not mean they will feed the baby: their childcare labor may be turned off, or they may be incapable of it.

• "Urgent" means the pawn will feed the baby day or night, even if the pawn is not assigned to childcare or capable of it.
• "Childcare" means the pawn will feed the baby as childcare work.
• "Never" means the pawn won't automatically feed the baby.

You can allow the baby to eat milk, insect jelly, and baby food in this tab, but can't control breastfeeding here.

Drugs

Although babies are limited to eating certain foods, you can administer drugs to babies under the Health>>Medical Operations tab. These have an outsized influence due to their very small body sizes (x0.20 of the size of an adult). Each drug causes a higher severity, increasing its duration. But due to the massive tolerance, any further drugs are very likely to get them addicted. The actual effects of a drug are the same between babies and adults.

Sleep

See also: Rest

Unlike adults, babies don't follow a sleep schedule, instead falling asleep mostly at random. They may be in a sleeping spot, growing steadily more sleepy and upset, while still not falling asleep.

A crib or bed should be provided for the baby to sleep in, as it will negate the negative mood from sleeping on the floor. There are several benefits of cribs over beds: cribs take up only one tile, multiple can be placed in a room without turning it into a barracks, and high-quality cribs can increase the mood of the baby while it rests or sleeps.

Force-feeding, holding, or playing with the baby will wake them up, possibly keeping them unhappy from being tired.

Play

Babies need to be played with, in place of standard Recreation. An adult assigned to child care will play with the baby once the play need is almost empty. There are different activities that will fulfill the baby's play need. A toy box and baby decoration increases the quality of play. Babies that are somehow psychopaths or inhumanized will be unaffected by this need, this cannot be seen outside of developer mode and adding the trait or hediff.

Mood

Babies' moods are influenced by their needs for food, sleep, and play. These are affected at the same rates as for adults:

Hunger	Ravenously Hungry	Hungry	Normal
Mood effect	-12	-6	0

Sleep	Tired	Drowsy	Normal
Mood effect	-12	-6	0

Play	Really wants to play	Wants to Play	Normal	Entertained	Very Entertained
Mood effect	-10	-5	0	5	10

Babies share some moodlets with adults but aren't affected by as many thoughts. Babies can gain the −4 Slept in the Cold moodlet, but aren't affected by temperature while awake. Babies have the same expectations for colony life as other pawns do, influencing their moods at the same rate. They can be influenced by psychic drones, soothes, and psycasts just as much as other pawns, because they have a psychic sensitivity of 100% by default. However, babies don't consider furniture comfort or quality, except while resting or sleeping in a crib, with various crib qualities providing higher mood boosts.

Uniquely, babies get a mood bonus when their parents are very happy: "Parent is happy" +6, or "Parents are happy" +12.

Being held or breastfed does not affect the baby or caretaking adult's mood in any direct way. However, babies will temporarily forget any ill mood effects from lack of Sleep while being held, although these needs will still decrease as usual.

A baby's mood affects the moods of all other colonists, much like children's moods can. Parents of a baby who is very happy will receive a +6 mood boost for "My child <baby> is happy". If the baby is about 1/3 of its happiness or less, parents have a −6 mood penalty, thinking "My child <baby> is unhappy". Babies also factor into the colonists' thoughts on the overall happiness of the colony's children, which range from a positive +2 "Happy youngsters" mood boost to a −2 "Sad youngsters", to worse negative mood penalties, all based on the average of the moods of colonists aged 0-17.

Giggling and crying

Instead of mental inspirations or mental breaks, babies will have giggling or crying "fits" which gives a mood boost or penalty to other colonists within a 10 tile^[Verify] radius. The ratio between giggling and crying is directly related with the baby's mood.

Mood boosts from giggling babies go from +4 up to +10, while crying babies can cause mood maluses from −8 down to −20. Parents are only half as bothered by their baby crying, and twice as happy when their baby is giggling. Pawns with 0% Hearing are not affected by the crying.^{[Giggling?][Parents vs non]}

Giggling occurance

Crying occurance

Giggling to crying ratio (higher is better)

Social

Babies get the same social opinion boosts from familial relationships that other pawns do. They are born aware of their entire family tree, going back to the great-grandparent generation and including dead relatives. In addition, their social relationships are impacted by who feeds them and who hears them crying. They will not know all of your colonists when born, only beginning to remember them after they've interacted a few times (and the colonist will likewise not remember the baby)!

Feeding changes the social opinions between a baby and their caretaker. A baby will gain about +16 social opinion for another pawn each time they are fed, with the "Fed me" opinion, which wears off over time. Breastfeeding provides a similar^[Same?] benefit. An adult who feeds a baby will gain about +4 social opinion for them from this act, and remember the feeding for longer than the baby does. This bonus only stacks up to 5 times, for a maximum of +16 opinion of the baby. Adults who breastfeed a baby gain about +7 opinion for the baby from the interaction. These feeding opinion changes are the same whether the caretaker is the baby's parent or not.

Adults who hear a baby cry or giggle will change their opinions of the baby temporarily. A crying baby will gain the Cried −12 opinion penalty, while a giggling baby will gain the Giggled +12 opinion boost. An adult can remember a baby's crying and giggling at the same time, cancelling each effect out. It is unclear if these modifiers stack.^{[Detail Needed]}

Analysis

The baby stage lasts for 45 days (3/4ths of a year). It requires a notably high amount of colonist labor, as the baby must both be fed and played with by adults.

Feeding babies takes a surprisingly long time, especially if breastfed. The base duration of feeding a baby from empty is 5,000 ticks (2 in-game hours), and babies need to be fed roughly twice a day. Between this and caring for her own needs, a mother tasked with caring for her baby can spend over half her waking hours, every day, for those 45 days.

Growth vats can be used to skip the baby stage, at the cost of nutrition and a slight mood penalty.

Version history

• Biotech DLC release - Introduced. Humans have a gestation cycle defined without Biotech, but they can not get pregnant.
• 1.4.3529 - Fix: Babies can carry items in caravans.
• 1.4.3541 - Fix: Overactive temperature warning for baby moving.
• 1.4.3555 - Lactating no longer prevents pregnancy or ovum extraction, but now inflicts a ×5% multiplier to Fertility. Update the lactating hediff's description to mention that it reduces fertility. Pawns away on a PawnLend quest won't have their lactating condition expire if there are any babies with them that can feed. Terminate pregnancy operation increased to 2 medicine (from 1), work slightly reduced. Update the wording of the stillbirth letter to be a bit clearer about the choice of naming the baby, and allow the player to decide not to name the baby. Fathers now get a negative thought if their child is stillborn. If a baby is stillborn from a surrogate mother, the gene-mother gets a negative thought.
• 1.4.3557 - Colonists born in the colony no longer stay stuck in labor forever if the Ideology DLC was not active when they became a child.
• 1.4.3580 - Fix: Babies being assigned child body type on load.

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Biotech (DLC)

Families

Relationships (Reproduction • Children)
Life stages (Babies • Children • Adults)
Furniture (Crib • Baby sleeping spot • Growth vat • Toy box • Baby decoration • School desk • Blackboard)

Mechanoids

Laborers (Agrihand • Cleansweeper • Constructoid • Fabricor • Lifter • Paramedic • Tunneler)
Combatants (Centurion • Legionary • Militor • Scorcher • Tesseron)
Commanders (Apocriton • Diabolus • War queen • War urchin)

Mechanitors

Control (Mechlink • Band node • Mech boosters • Mech signallers • Control pack • Airwire headset)
Mechanoid creation (Basic subcore • Standard subcore • High subcore • Subcore encoder • Subcore softscanner • Subcore ripscanner • Mech gestator)
Maintenance (Mech recharger)

Genetics

Xenohumans (Dirtmoles • Genies • Highmates • Hussars • Impids • Neanderthals • Pigskins • Sanguophages • Wasters • Yttakin)
Genes Germline • Xenogene • Metabolic efficiency
Genetic Modification Genepack • Gene extractor • Gene bank • Gene assembler • Gene processor • Xenogerm • Archite capsules
Deathrest (Deathrest accelerator • Deathrest capacity serum • Deathrest casket • Glucosoid pump • Hemogen amplifier • Hemopump • Psychofluid pump)

Pollution

Nature (Toxalope • Toxipotato plant • Waste rat • Gray pine tree • Pebble cactus • Rat palm tree • Witchwood tree • Stasis cocoon)
Mitigation (Wastepacks • Atomizers • Pollution pumps • Polux trees)
Adaptation Face mask • Gas mask • Tox grenades • Tox pack • Tox shell • Toxic needle gun • Toxbomb launcher • Detoxifier kidney • Detoxifier lung
Nonchalance Toxifier generator