New ‘Designing Motherhood’ Exhibit Opens at the Gates Foundation Discovery Center

Who should go see an exhibit on birth and motherhood?

Mothers, yes.

But also uncles. Early childhood educators. Siblings. Fathers. Aunts. Someone who lost a pregnancy. Midwives and doulas. A child-free person. It’s not an exhibit only for mothers. If you haven’t given birth, someone gave birth to you.

“Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births,” a new exhibit at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center, opened today and is on view through Dec. 30.

Situated across the street from the Seattle Center, the Gates Foundation Discovery Center is free and open to the public, Thursday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

The trappings of birth

“Designing Motherhood” includes some 200 objects around human reproduction and maternal and newborn health, including historical artifacts, works of art and Gates Foundation–funded innovations. Some of the items come from museum collections (historic nipple shields) and some come from eBay (a DialPak pill dispenser, circa 2001).

“We think this exhibit is for everyone,” says Juliana Rowen Barton, one of the exhibit’s five co-curators. “Everyone has been born. That’s a fact. You don’t have to have a uterus to learn or feel connected to the issues.”

The exhibit covers conception, contraception, pregnancy, birth and postpartum experiences. It’s intense.

There’s a content advisory placard at the beginning of the exhibit. The artifacts include speculums, forceps, an IUD inserter — things that made my uterus hurt just looking at them. Bring your child when you’re ready to talk about these big (and important!) issues. In Seattle Public Schools, fifth-graders are taught a family life and sexual health curriculum, so that’s a starting point.

“Knowledge is power,” notes Rowen Barton. “Better they have the correct information, they have an understanding of how their bodies work, and how other people’s bodies work.”

The path of the exhibit

The special exhibit starts at the base of the ramp at the entrance to the visitor center. You’ll see a second-edition copy of the book “Our Bodies, Ourselves” (from back when the book cost 30 cents) and a nude self-portrait by artist Deborah Willis from when she was pregnant.

There’s an early abortion device engineered with easy-to-find parts: a Mason jar, a syringe and tubing purchased from an aquarium supply store.

Continuing up the ramp leads to a large room with a curvy table winding through the space like an umbilical cord. You’ll see a replica of a speculum used in Pompeii (A.D. 79); a Scottish baby box packed with baby clothes and supplies is designed to give every child in Scotland an equal start to life; and a breast pump from 1879, the first where the design was based on human anatomy, not bovine.

In the third and final space, the theater room, infographics leaning against the wall bear grim statistics. The United States is the only country with an advanced economy where maternal mortality is getting worse.

Exhibit background

“Designing Motherhood” originated in Philadelphia, where it opened in 2021. For its Seattle run, 20 objects funded by the Gates Foundation were added. (You can tell by the subtle gray border around those items.)

The purpose of these innovations is to expand care to low-resource places. One example is a silicone cup designed by a craniofacial surgeon at Seattle Children’s Hospital, so mothers can express milk for premature babies and babies born with cleft palates. Another is the NeoNatalie, a low-cost simulator doll for training health-care workers on how to do infant resuscitation.

There’s a lot of information to digest here. Take a break and try baby-wearing at an interactive station outfitted with a doll and three different kinds of carriers.

There’s also a real-life infographic you can participate in: Place a dot on the wall to mark how much paid or unpaid parental leave you received. On opening day, someone had already placed a dot at “23 weeks paid.” Wow. What a unicorn of an experience.

If someone in your party gets really wiggly, you can head to the last room at the top of the ramp, where there are some Magna-Tiles, Tegu blocks and interactive screens.