A reborn doll is a doll which has been altered by an artist and transformed into a real looking human baby. The time-consuming process of making these detailed reborn baby dolls is called reborning. Reborn baby dolls are made from already made vinyl dolls which are selected for their existing lifelike features, human features and expressions, body softness and shapes, and silky feel, unlike other plastic store dolls. Some of these realistic looking features are things like openings for nostrils, ears and even well fitted prosthetic eyes into eye sockets. Hair is also fitted as wigs or strand by strand to the scalp of the baby doll to realize a lifelike look just as how hair is well featured on the scalp of a real newborn baby.

The dolls are stuffed and their weights are checked so as to get an accurate replica to the weight distribution of a real human baby, while some are also fitted with electronic features such as voice boxes, devices to make them feel warm as a real infant would and other mechanisms that support body motions, heartbeats and even breathing.