So, there was a hidden room where the women were taken to die?

That totally creeped me out. Wouldn't they try to keep these women alive as long as possible? Why send them into captivity?

So Claire really was going to die. Wow.

You know this SO smacks of the movie "The Island". The scene where they take the pregnant women to have their babies, but instead they deliver them and the babies are given to adoptive parents and the mothers are "euthanized".

I don't think that the women were brought there in a bad way, I think that the pregnant women pretty much had to live in the medical hatch because they needed so much medical care as their pregnancies progressed. So that room served as a happy place where the thought of having a child was prevalent. It wasn't a scary room or anything, I would think that an expecting mother would love that room.

Good call on the Island analogy....

Perhaps it was a kind of quarantine? Not because they feared anyone would get sick, but to sequester the preggers away from others so they didn't flip out when they knew that they were going to die. Having a room like that is almost a consession that the Others knew there wasn't anything they could do to save them, ergo they put them in a back room, maybe under a false pretense of motherhood preparation, and just let death take it's course.

You know this SO smacks of the movie "The Island". The scene where they take the pregnant women to have their babies, but instead they deliver them and the babies are given to adoptive parents and the mothers are "euthanized".And that is scary!!! That movie was killer but I'm not sure I'd like it for Lost. Don't know why though.

kind of makes sense bringing the pregnant women into a hidden room... what woman would want to try to get pregnant knowing that all the other women who got pregnant died ... wouldnt exactly help with research if noone got pregnant ??

of course when the women never came back ... that would put up some flags...

I have a couple of ideas on Juliet's statement.
Either she was lying to Sun, or she was expressing her frustration.

If she was lying to Sun, perhaps it was a set up so that she could go into her story about the nine who died, and her desire to give good news. Something that seemed contrived to me, but it worked. Sun let her do her testing, and they bonded over it. Ben wins this one.

If Juliet was just expressing frustration at not being able to bring a pregnancy to fruition,...that could be true. If we believe her story, she, as a fertility expert, could not produce one single successful birth on the island, or it's vicinity.

I wondered why the island is not just healing these women? If it can cure Locke, Rose, and make an infertile man, fertile,...why can't it just heal the pregnant women?

If you look at those who have been healed, from what we've seen,...they have come to the island with the diseases, or disorders.

I don't understand why the island can't cure an existing condition. Any ideas?

I don't think that the women were brought there in a bad way, I think that the pregnant women pretty much had to live in the medical hatch because they needed so much medical care as their pregnancies progressed. So that room served as a happy place where the thought of having a child was prevalent. It wasn't a scary room or anything, I would think that an expecting mother would love that room.

This is what I think too. They needed to keep the women close to medical facilities, and I'm sure they wanted to keep them thinking positive.

That totally creeped me out. Wouldn't they try to keep these women alive as long as possible? Why send them into captivity?

I'm assuming they were quarantined because whatever was wrong with them is the supposed island "sickness"??? Perhaps it becomes contagious the closer the host gets to death so they have to quarantine them to protect other people..... :undecide:

[
I wondered why the island is not just healing these women? If it can cure Locke, Rose, and make an infertile man, fertile,...why can't it just heal the pregnant women?

If you look at those who have been healed, from what we've seen,...they have come to the island with the diseases, or disorders.

I don't understand why the island can't cure an existing condition. Any ideas?[/quote]

The only theory that I can come up with and I posted it in another thread in Left Behind that the fact that women cannot carry a pregnancy to term is a fail safe for people not to stay on the Island and never leave. The Island can only sustain so many people at one time. If people come there to live permanently they Island wont be the same. People coming to the Island and leaving to have children is a way for the Island to maintain its balance in Population. Think of the indoor swimming pool in the movie Cocoon. The pool didn't heal the seniors after 100 of them stormed the pool all at once.

So many good ideas here. I really have no idea which way to lean. I really thought the whole thing was very creepy. When Juliet said that, I wondered if she was being cynical/jaded. As in, this is the room where the women were brought to give birth, but of course, every time, they died.
Or is that where the women were brought so the babies could be stolen from or something and then the women were killed or died anyway? I don't really get it. Since I never know when to trust Juliet and/or Ben, I never know which information related to this storyline is true or not!

Didn't that room have a crib? Why? If the women don't last to the third trimester, there's no way the babies could survive either.

You're assuming that the women knew 100% they were going to die and that they knew 100% that they could do nothing about it. I would think that they at least would have thought positively when they brought a feritily doctor to the island and once, just once, one might make it to full term, thus it would need a crib.

Take the crib as a symbol of faith.

What about the pregnant woman who died on the operating table in "One Of Us" - I believe her name was Sabine - she didn't go to a room to die - she died right there on the O.R. table.

Juliet is snowing Sun.

What about the pregnant woman who died on the operating table in "One Of Us" - I believe her name was Sabine - she didn't go to a room to die - she died right there on the O.R. table.
Juliet is snowing Sun.

Perhaps they were performing an emergency C-section to deliver a premature infant in order to save the woman's life. I doubt they could save the baby since the earliest preemie to ever survive was born at 23 weeks gestation - and it is extremely rare for a baby that small to survive, plus Juliet said the women don't get to their third trimester which starts around 27-28 weeks.

Generally, if you can get past 27 weeks, a really good hospital with excellent NICU can keep the infant alive. These women are on an island and as far as I know, there isn't a neonatologist on staff. It would be highly unlikely for a premature baby to survive there, so I'm assuming that they didn't have any delusions of saving the baby with the C-section. I believe they were trying desperately to save the mother and thought removing the baby would save her - which would explain the woman dying on the operating table.

I'm interested in screencaps for this room. I'll put in a request over at DarkUfo. I thought that some of the wall decorations strewn around this hidden room were similar to those in the room they kept Claire in.

I agree with the 'quarantine' idea. Round the clock surveillance on these women. It's all so macabre. The hidden room was a great 'reveal'. Maternity Ward is one of my favorite episodes EVER. I love that Juliet is communicating with Ben through a micro-cassette recorder.

Keep in mind how much Juliet has lied about so far. We know we can't trust much of what she says. I think she is lying to Sun to freak her out and think she is going to die.

You know... I too wondered why women would continue to get pregnant, if the previous 9 pregnancies brought forth no babies - or themselves. I'm sure Ben was giving them all some sort of excuse. AND - what better visual aid in an excuse than a real baby. So, take for example, Ben's wife getting pregnant and then going to the DarmaHospital to give birth. Obviously she "died in childbirth" but if Ben had stolen Alex around the same time, then he could have brought the "his" baby back to the other Others and said, "Look at my baby, but sadly her mother died in childbirth." It would be a pretty accepted excuse. I think that could be one reason they are babysnatchers.

Keep in mind how much Juliet has lied about so far. We know we can't trust much of what she says. I think she is lying to Sun to freak her out and think she is going to die.

But how is that a lie when we know that the women really DO die?

If this is where they take women to die, then why was the door about a foot thick? And, why was it a hidden room behind lockers? Juliet is lying.

I don't know how much Juliet is lying. She obviously hates Ben for making her do what she does (she said it while she was alone). She's shady, for sure, but I think she's just being pressured or blackmailed with the life of her sister and nephew.

I think she can be counted on to eventually "go good" or whatever. Remember, she gave that message to Jack about some of the Others wanting to get rid of Ben. And all of her flashbacks show her to be a kind person. Since she's not an island "native," I think she's trustworthy.

Why there? Why in a hatch far away from Other Ville? In a room with a super steel door? Why take them out of Other Ville where there is an operating room set up. Where they worked on Colleen and Ben.
Why if they were doomed to die didn’t they just let them die in their own beds in their own Other Ville homes?
During that flash back of Juliet when the mother died on the table, was that the first of the 9 mothers she saw die? Juliet did seemed pretty stunned.
There really seems to be more to just that “they die” than they are letting on right now.
Too many questions that boggle the mind here.
~~~
Im Puzzled

Good questions all...at the point we see it the hidden room seemed to be used more as storage than anything else. I think they threw all the stuff from the room they had Claire in, which from her flashbacks was clean and decorated, into the hidden room, hence the crib being in there. Having these things around is just another illusion in the long list of them that all is well. Most women who really want a child will take great measures in order to make it happen, despite the odds, even in the face of death. Out of this intense desire to have a child, I believe they are likely to believe anything, including the belief that they will not be the one to die. If enough positive re-enforcement is given it's not too surprising to me that they go ahead with getting pregnant.

If this is where they take women to die, then why was the door about a foot thick?
And, why was it a hidden room behind lockers?

I took that to be a Dharma "lockdown" door like the one in the Swan.
What the inhabitants need a huge steel door to protect them from,
I can't say.
Hostiles? Electromagnetic meltdown? Smokey?

Good questions all...at the point we see it the hidden room seemed to be used more as storage than anything else. I think they threw all the stuff from the room they had Claire in, which from her flashbacks was clean and decorated, into the hidden room, hence the crib being in there. Having these things around is just another illusion in the long list of them that all is well. Most women who really want a child will take great measures in order to make it happen, despite the odds, even in the face of death. Out of this intense desire to have a child, I believe they are likely to believe anything, including the belief that they will not be the one to die. If enough positive re-enforcement is given it's not too surprising to me that they go ahead with getting pregnant.



http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-980-368.html

http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1283-451.html

Yep, It looks like the same stuff to me. If it's in storage maybe they gave up on getting baby Aaron. There was a thread on the Maternity Leave board here about how "bummed out" the Wall animals looked. That's why I recongnized that Zebra. Those are some of the most bizzare looking decorations for a kids room.:eek2:

I'm assuming they were quarantined because whatever was wrong with them is the supposed island "sickness"??? Perhaps it becomes contagious the closer the host gets to death so they have to quarantine them to protect other people..... :undecide:


That makes sense =] It's true, we never really did find out what the sickness was. Perhaps you are right!

The medical hatch seems way damper than the other hatches.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/212/474284241_36cce29995_m.jpg
Sun reminds me of the girl from "The Ring" in the screencap above.

Juliette is probably lying about the purpose of the room. Saying it's where the mothers came to die is a good way to kill the question, fast. You can even see her eyes looking up and her playing with her hair while she thinks it up.

This room isn't so much hidden as it is BLAST PROOF. My theory is the Others are preparing to bring something very awesome into the world (Antichrist? Unclechrist? ;) ) and they might need to contain it in a very strong cell. OR... that they're worried about some other others trying to kill he/she/it... so it's essentially a bomb shelter. But you don't need 4 inch diameter pins to hold a door shut just because the room is hidden.

It's the same room Ethan showed Claire in "Maternity Leave". She was all drugged up. It had a the crib that had a toy mobile of Oceanic Airlines planes that played Claire's special song!

The crib was still in there (along with other toys and baby stuff) though it does look like they stored away all the equipment they were using in other rooms of the medical hatch there as well.

There's one more thing about this hatch... If you watch Maternity Leave, there's a scene in the main hallway and there's a small door on the wall labelled "Escape Hatch". Escape from what? To where?

I wondered why the island is not just healing these women? If it can cure Locke, Rose, and make an infertile man, fertile,...why can't it just heal the pregnant women?

If you look at those who have been healed, from what we've seen,...they have come to the island with the diseases, or disorders.

I don't understand why the island can't cure an existing condition. Any ideas?

Pregnancy isnt a disease or disorder though is it? Its a natural bodily function.

While you can definitely get ill while pregnant, pregnancy itself isnt an illness to be healed.

They havent explained why they die medically, so cant see this can be a comparison. Similar that other people have died on the island, Boone, Shannon, Nikki, Paolo. They were killed outright, so nothing to heal.

One more thing I noticed from "One of Us". In one of Juliet's flashbacks we see a pregnant woman die, under Ethan's knife with Juliet and Goodwin observing, and it's in the main operating room in the medical hatch, not the hidden room.

There's one more thing about this hatch... If you watch Maternity Leave, there's a scene in the main hallway and there's a small door on the wall labelled "Escape Hatch". Escape from what? To where?

I love the maternity hatch, second to The Flame station. Anyway, I remember a lively thread about the "escape hatch" at the time too. I asumed it was some sort of tunnel system to other hatches (or something like that). After our Roger WorkMan episode, I keep wondering if the road map found in WorkMan's truck wasn't a map for such a tunnel system, instead of the assumption it was an above ground map.

There was a thread after the WorkMan episode too, questioning the system of switch backs for an underground tunnel.

ANYWAY, way off topic now.

I agree that what makes this hidden room significant is the fact that it is a thick, blast door with a locking mechanism.

I'm also so freaked out about the mopey looking circus animals too.

At Soth Shore's suggestion, I brought these questions over here-

Why is the hidden room in the Caduceus (medical) hatch?

It was built by Dahrma, who either had no prior knowledge of the Others, or considered them as no threat.

It was occupied by the Others, presumably after "The Purge", so there was no threat, at the time.

So if it originally wasn't needed, and there was no reason to remodel and create it when the new owners moved in, why is it there?

Additionally, since it appears to be a storeroom, were the 'pregos' kept in that particular room, or was Juliet referring to the entire hatch?

Well from what I recall the reason pregnant women die is because the island thinks the embryo/fetus is a 'strange object' in the person carrying it and gets rid of it (like it cures cancer). The only question is why do the mother's die (I mean it cured Rose's cancer and she did not die).

OK, I have no idea how that would make sense

This room isn't so much hidden as it is BLAST PROOF. My theory is the Others are preparing to bring something very awesome into the world (Antichrist? Unclechrist? ;) ) and they might need to contain it in a very strong cell.
It would appear, Dr. Burke, that the women of this island suffer a very stressful pregnancy. Once the fetus reaches a certain stage of gestation, it explodes, killing the would-be-mother and anyone else within 50 feet.

We want to see whether you can control the timing of this phenomenon, so that we can develop it into a useful weapon.

Robert

I have a couple of ideas on Juliet's statement.
Either she was lying to Sun, or she was expressing her frustration.

If she was lying to Sun, perhaps it was a set up so that she could go into her story about the nine who died, and her desire to give good news. Something that seemed contrived to me, but it worked. Sun let her do her testing, and they bonded over it. Ben wins this one.

If Juliet was just expressing frustration at not being able to bring a pregnancy to fruition,...that could be true. If we believe her story, she, as a fertility expert, could not produce one single successful birth on the island, or it's vicinity.

I wondered why the island is not just healing these women? If it can cure Locke, Rose, and make an infertile man, fertile,...why can't it just heal the pregnant women?

If you look at those who have been healed, from what we've seen,...they have come to the island with the diseases, or disorders.

I don't understand why the island can't cure an existing condition. Any ideas?

Well what I thought was that if the sperm count is raised then maybe something is wrong with the sperm. Maybe it is making the fetus develop much faster and that is why women cannot carry to full term. Their bodies cannot handle all of the baby that quickly.

Just a thought:undecide:

Maybe they kept them in this room because of the excrutiating pain the pregnant women went through before dying. Since we know that they body sees the fetus as a "disease" or "foreign object" the body then turns on itself and when this happens it cause immense pain and they need this room since it looks to be sound proof. Kinda disturbing but you never know. Just a thought.

It seems like this room is designed with the purpose of keeping things in, rather than out. The switch to open it is hidden, but not well enough to make it a "safe room." Since Claire was being kept there against her will in "Maternity Leave," it's quite possible the heavy security is just to prevent the people in the room from escaping (before they are supposed to, in Claire's case).

It's possible that the security door was originally built by Dharma as part of the secret tunnel system, and The Others repurposed it after they took over. Smokey is thought to travel via underground tunnels, so there may be a connection there, but these tunnels could just be a "back door" for the experiment operators' personal use.

At Soth Shore's suggestion, I brought these questions over here-

Why is the hidden room in the Caduceus (medical) hatch?

It was built by Dahrma, who either had no prior knowledge of the Others, or considered them as no threat.

It was occupied by the Others, presumably after "The Purge", so there was no threat, at the time.

So if it originally wasn't needed, and there was no reason to remodel and create it when the new owners moved in, why is it there?

Additionally, since it appears to be a storeroom, were the 'pregos' kept in that particular room, or was Juliet referring to the entire hatch?

Dharma did know about the Others. When Locke was in the Flame playing chess and he won, Marvin Candle came up on the screen and started talking about the hostiles. It was something like "Have the hostiles attacked or infiltrated?" Something like that. The point being when Dharma built the Flame they knew that there were others living on the island and referred to them as hostiles.

Also, when Dharma built the hidden room, it may not have been used as a secret room for mothers. Dharma was an organization that was interested in all different sciences. The original intent of the room may have been completely different. Maybe we will learn more during:

Ben's flashback

[

The only theory that I can come up with and I posted it in another thread in Left Behind that the fact that women cannot carry a pregnancy to term is a fail safe for people not to stay on the Island and never leave. The Island can only sustain so many people at one time. If people come there to live permanently they Island wont be the same. People coming to the Island and leaving to have children is a way for the Island to maintain its balance in Population. Think of the indoor swimming pool in the movie Cocoon. The pool didn't heal the seniors after 100 of them stormed the pool all at once.


This is what I was thinking, too--it's like the island is protecting itself against being populated. Increasing the men's sperm count fivefold when all the women who get pregnant die is really stacking the deck against any kind of permanent settlement on the island. The pregnant women dying would ensure that successive generations couldn't live there, but adding the factor of the supersperm would shut down the possibility of a permanent settlement even more efficiently.

My question is, did the island always have this property, in which case the Black Rock survivors couldn't have propagated, or is it only with the arrival of Dharma or some action on the part of the Others that this pregnancy death sentence originated?

It's the same room Ethan showed Claire in "Maternity Leave". She was all drugged up. It had a the crib that had a toy mobile of Oceanic Airlines planes that played Claire's special song!

The crib was still in there (along with other toys and baby stuff) though it does look like they stored away all the equipment they were using in other rooms of the medical hatch there as well.


As raspie indicated earlier on this thread, this hidden room is NOT the same room as the room Claire saw in ML. In the ML episode, when Kate, Claire, and Rousseau go into the "vacated" medical hatch, Claire goes into the room that had the crib and baby stuff. You can see silhouettes on the wall where the wall hangings were, and Claire picks up a little booty or a toy on the floor. Also, that room had a normal door on a hinge, not a 2' thick "blast door".

When the Others cleared out of that station (probably right after Ethan was killed), they took what they needed to take with them, and then just hid the rest of their stuff (including the crib, medical equipment, etc) in that hidden room, figuring that even if the Losties found the hatch they wouldn't find that room.

Well from what I recall the reason pregnant women die is because the island thinks the embryo/fetus is a 'strange object' in the person carrying it and gets rid of it (like it cures cancer). The only question is why do the mother's die (I mean it cured Rose's cancer and she did not die).

OK, I have no idea how that would make sense

It's true that whenever you are pregnant your immune system weakens so that you do not miscarry. (I just found this out from my doctor a couple of nights ago when I couldn't get rid of a chest cold) It could be that on the Island the immune system of the pregnant women goes into overdrive not only killing the fetus but the mothers as well.

Dharma did know about the Others. When Locke was in the Flame playing chess and he won, Marvin Candle came up on the screen and started talking about the hostiles. It was something like "Have the hostiles attacked or infiltrated?" Something like that. The point being when Dharma built the Flame they knew that there were others living on the island and referred to them as hostiles.


I disagree. I think Dharma had to change plans after the Purge, which could have been the incident. Then Marvin Candle came in a shot new movies. Remember the Swan Orientation? "This station was built to study the EM in this part of the island, but after the incident the following protocol has been adopted..." - this clearly implied that the stations were built first and after some time the current protocols have been adopted.

Maybe they shot a new movie for the Flame as well.
100%
As raspie indicated earlier on this thread, this hidden room is NOT the same room as the room Claire saw in ML. In the ML episode, when Kate, Claire, and Rousseau go into the "vacated" medical hatch, Claire goes into the room that had the crib and baby stuff. You can see silhouettes on the wall where the wall hangings were, and Claire picks up a little booty or a toy on the floor. Also, that room had a normal door on a hinge, not a 2' thick "blast door".

When the Others cleared out of that station (probably right after Ethan was killed), they took what they needed to take with them, and then just hid the rest of their stuff (including the crib, medical equipment, etc) in that hidden room, figuring that even if the Losties found the hatch they wouldn't find that room.

Exactly!!

And Sun's question was "What is this place?" she was asking about the whole station, not the specific room.

She acknowledged the 'new' hatch, dark tunnels, abandoned style and when she saw a secret door she decided to ask the question she'd been wanting to make since she saw the door.

They needed to keep the women close to medical facilities, and I'm sure they wanted to keep them thinking positive.

And nothing says "think positive" like putting you behind a 2-foot thick blast door. Seriously, though, I guess that room was originally used for something else. But that thing was considerably thicker than the blast doors at the swan! (????)