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Parents grieving the loss of a child is an all too common yet devastating part of life. Reborn dolls, dolls that are completely transformed by an artist to resemble a human baby, are being used to bring some comfort to those who are suffering.
The dolls are commonly created with silicone, creating a lifelike feeling of human skin. Artists, or reborners as they prefer to be known, painstakingly hand paint the silicone in order to make it look like skin, even including blood vessels and topping it off with faux eyelashes.
The dolls are even weighted to give the feel of holding a real child.
From an outsider’s perspective, cuddling up to a doll that is designed to look and feel like a real human baby might be quite strange, but there is a larger following than you might realise and the dolls can be easily purchased online.
The industry appears to have the celebrity stamp too with the likes of Courtney Stodden, Doug Hutchison’s ex-wife, taking to her social media in 2016 to show off her reborn baby doll.
In Courtney’s case, her therapist suggested a reborn doll shortly after she suffered a miscarriage.
The seal of approval from a celebrity has helped to break the stigma surrounding the dolls a little more as they continue to gain traction and popularity in the worldwide market, the Mirror reports.
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Those who struggle or are unable to conceive have also been known to seek solace in a reborn doll.
The lifelike dolls also appeal to those with dementia as the dolls can trigger positive memories and even go some way to prevent agitation and anxiety.
There is also a demand for the dolls to plainly be collected as a hobby. One such example is the YouTube channel ran by a 15-year-old girl named Sophia who creates videos detailing ‘a day in the life’ of each of the dolls to her 52K subscribers.
She takes the dolls out shopping for clothes and gives each individual doll dedicated mealtimes and bath times.
Additional reporting by OliviaRose Fox.
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