Fetus Facebook: Social network adds your unborn child

Facebook has added an option to include unborn children on a user's profile page, allowing expectant parents to namecheck their fetus and specify when, exactly, the little bundle of joy is expected. "For years, people have been using Facebook to share the joyous news of expecting a child" a company spokesperson told The Telegraph, "and, a few months ago, we began testing a feature designed to make that process easier."

Rather than just the mother-to-be being able to add the baby information, anyone can add an "Expected: child" family member in the Facebook profile edit pages. Giving it a name is optional, though there's no way to check off expected gender if you already know.

According to Facebook, though, the new feature is a response to long-observed patterns in existing user behavior, and the company doesn't believe it's pushing pregnancy status updating on anybody. "We develop new features, in part, by seeing how people use the service" the spokesperson claimed.

Still, the addition is already prompting controversy among social networkers, with some believing the tweak is one step too far. Facebook – like most other services of its ilk – does not allow anybody under the age of 13 to establish their own account, so it looks like they'll have to be content with piggy-backing their parents until that point.