Brazil breaks out in a rash over life-like doll craze
RIO DE JANEIRO - Blink and you could mistake the bundle in the stroller in Rio de Janeiro for the real thing.
Their hyper-realistic dolls bear an eerie resemblance to actual infants.
Some of the so-called "reborn" dolls cry, suck dummies, pee, have nails, eyelashes and veins.
But what really sets them apart from traditional dolls with waxy, smooth complexion is their puckered features and blotchy skin.
Demand for these replica babies, which first emerged in the United States in the early 1990s, targeting adults chiefly, has rocketed in the South American country in recent years.
Made with silicone or vinyl, the price tag for these bundles of joy can run to thousands of dollars.
The dolls tottered into the public debate in April when a group of collectors held a gathering in a park in Sao Paulo.
Footage of the event went viral, along with a separate video of a reborn "birth," in which an influencer extracts a dishevelled doll from a fluid-filled bag passing for an amniotic sac and then clamps a make-believe umbilical cord.
Social media erupted with posts either condemning the would-be mothers' behaviour as deranged or dismissing it as a harmless hobby.
AFP | MAURO PIMENTEL
Alana Generoso, a longtime reborn baby collector, who now owns her own doll store, insists that her customers are perfectly sound of mind.
"Many children come to the story, as well as adults that lead normal lives," the 46-year-old mother of real four-year-old triplets said.
Alana Babys Maternity Hospital in Campinas is designed to look like an authentic maternity ward.
Before handing over a doll to its new owner, employees in white coats take it from an incubator, weigh it, place it in a stroller and present the proud "parent" with a birth certificate.
"Here, you're not buying an ordinary doll, you're buying a dream," Generoso argued.
"Are there cases of people looking after the dolls as if they were real babies? Yes, but they're not a majority."
The debate has reverberated all the way up to Congress.
Some MPs are calling for "reborn" mums to receive psychological help, but others call for people who allegedly use their "babies" to jump the queue for public services to be punished.
Last week, an MP made clear which camp he was in when he brought his reborn "granddaughter" to parliament.
Playing with dolls is "not a sin," Manoel Isidorio, an evangelical pastor, argued.
For psychologist Viviane Cunha, collecting dolls is a hobby that is only categorised as a disorder when it causes "social, emotional or economic harm."
"If for example the person skips work because 'the baby has a fever', and believes it to be true, then he or she needs professional help," she said.
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