Why Some Women Pay Up to $5,000 for Life-Like, 'Reborn' Baby Dolls: Some Are Grieving, Others Think 'They're Cute'

NEED TO KNOW

• Lifelike dolls, known as reborn dolls, have been popular for two decades and can cost up to $5,000
• Collectors have many reasons for buying the dolls, such as grieving after pregnancy loss or enjoying adult play, experts say
• “Culture is incredibly uncomfortable with grief and sadness and pain,” Dr. Jessica Zucker tells PEOPLE exclusively

“You see a doll, I see a baby that I never got to hold,” a woman says in a TikTok video while cradling a lifelike doll — known as a reborn doll — that has the chubby cheeks and sparse, blonde hair of a newborn. 

Another woman, Christina Keeler, who is married with two daughters, has a social media channel called “The Reborn Family,” with 38,000 subscribers. She gets thousands of views for videos in which she takes out the dolls in public outings.

“I was never able to talk about our pregnancy loss until I found reborns,” Keeler, who had a pregnancy loss nine years ago before her daughters arrived, tells PEOPLE exclusively of buying her first doll. “It has been very therapeutic for me.”

The women are part of a niche community of people that collect reborn dolls – some of which can cost up to $5,000. 

“We get people that have had babies and they’re stillborn and they’re grieving,” David Stack, 54, who founded Reborn.com, one of the most popular sites to buy the dolls, tells PEOPLE.

According to Stack, sometimes the site sells about 60 dolls a day.

“Sometimes, they buy them and it helps them get through their grief,” he adds.

There are a myriad of reasons for women (and it’s mostly women) to buy — or “adopt” — reborn dolls, but Stack says that primarily, people “just love babies and think they’re cute.”

“You fall in love with a baby’s expression and like to dress it up and kind of pretend it’s [your] baby,” he adds.

Reborn dolls first became popular over two decades ago when doll creators started repurposing manufactured dolls to look more lifelike, hence the “reborn” name, he says. The average cost of a reborn doll is $250, but silicone dolls, which feel the most lifelike, start at $1,000 and can go up to $4,000 or $5,000.

One of Maria Trigg’s reborn dolls.

Coly Trigg/TikTok

Dr. Jessica Zucker, a psychologist specializing in reproductive and maternal mental health, has talked with women who have navigated pregnancy loss with the help of such dolls.

“Culture is incredibly uncomfortable with grief and sadness and pain, particularly when it comes to pregnancy and infant loss, because presumably nobody else had the experience of that pregnancy,” says Zucker, the author of the Normalize It: Upending the Silence, Stigma, and Shame That Shape Women’s Lives. “Nobody else met the fetus, met the baby.”

She says that women may find “newfound comfort” by having the doll to “cuddle with, to care for, to bring into public.” The weight of the doll can also be therapeutic. Zucker says she spoke with one woman, who had living children, was grappling with the grief of  a stillbirth. “She kind of considered it one of her babies among the losses,” says Zucker, who says the doll kept the grieving mom “company” throughout the day. 

While Zucker is not an expert in doll therapy, she says that reborn dolls can serve as a sort of “buffer” for women, so they can navigate their grief after having a miscarriage or stillbirth. “Maybe it acts as a way in which we can sort of feel some of the pain and suspend some of the pain by acting as a mother,” she says, “by acting as a caregiver, by caring for something outside of oneself.”

Keeler says the weight of a reborn doll can be comforting, like a weighted blanket or a hug.

“I love the newborn phase,” she says, adding that a reborn doll is a way of enjoying that phase “without the commitment of signing on forever with a human life.” She loves being a mom to her two kids and says that creating reborn content is just an extension of that love.

Doll therapy has also been shown to benefit dementia patients by improving their sense of attachment and emotional well-being, according to a 2014 study published in Frontiers in Psychology. 

The creator with one of her dolls.

Coly Trigg/TikTok

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In an interview with PEOPLE last year, Maria Trigg – who went viral on TikTok after sharing the lifelike dolls she makes herself – said that many of her followers and collectors have turned to the dolls as somewhat of a coping mechanism. “[Some] have told me the dolls have helped them during a healing journey — whether they are going through the grief of having lost a child or anxiety/depression/dementia.”

While there are people who criticize Trigg and other creators and collectors like her, she is not deterred by their opinions.

“Some people collect stamps, and while I don’t understand that, I don’t judge it,” Trigg said. “What makes dolls any different? To me, that nurturing spirit is a gift, and I am not ashamed of it.”