They're cute and cuddly, they cry and wail just like a real baby, and they do absolutely nothing to prevent teenagers getting pregnant.

They may actually make pregnancy more likely.

Electronic baby dolls, fake babies, robot babies, infant simulators - whatever you want to call them - are those scarily lifelike newborns used in schools as an education prop. The idea is that each student takes one home and learns first-hand the trauma of being a new parent, and this experience makes them less likely to choose to get pregnant.

That's the idea. Turns out that, despite being used in 89 countries including Australia, there was never any statistical evidence they worked to reduce rates of pregnancy.

Now there is evidence. And they don't work.

According to a new study of more than 1000 girls who cared for electronic babies, those who completed the program were 1.6 times more likely to have a pregnancy.

Maybe the girls who do the program want to have a baby?

The study controlled for the obvious variables, like whether the family was rich or poor, and whether the subject had indicated she had already had sex or not.

It was also randomised, to avoid any selection bias.

"Even when we control for that, there's an increased risk of 1.6 times more likely to have pregnancy if you participate in program than if not," said Dr Sally Brinkman, one of the authors of the report, and an Associate Professor at the University of Adelaide.

So all this time ... robots have been getting us pregnant?

Maybe.

Dr Brinkman couldn't speculate on why that might be, including whether the students may have enjoyed having the electronic dolls too much.

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Whatsapp Robots and human overlords (none of the girls are from the study).

The study involved almost 3000 high school-age girls in Western Australia. About half took part in the program. The researchers tracked their medical records to age 20, and this meant they could work out who had a teenage pregnancy, and, of these, who had chosen to have an abortion.

"Some became extremely attached to their fake babies," Dr Brinkman said. "They got a lot of attention from family friends while they had the baby, and then there was the other extreme of some students who found it difficult and did not engage at all.

"There were stories of dolls wrapped up in sleeping bags or put in the garden shed.

Some babies came back with blu-tac over the microphone to keep them quiet.

"There was a very diverse range of behaviour. These infant simulators tend to promote quite a reaction. In general most of the students liked having the baby."

Why did anyone think this was a good idea?

Dr Brinkman described the Virtual Infanting Programme that was being used in Western Australian schools at the time of the study as a "feel-good program". People who deliver the program like it, and students engage well.

... Maybe too well.

"There's lots of positive energy around the program itself but that's not enough. Just because people like it, it's not good enough to say this program works."

"It may be doing harm."

Apart from promoting teenage pregnancy, the dolls are expensive. They cost up to $1800 each plus maintenance, nappies and other accessories.

According to Dr Brinkman, they are still being used in Australian schools as part of programs to prevent teenage pregnancies. They've also been popularised through TV shows. Just this month they featured in a "baby group date" on The Bachelor.