Researchers are creating an artificial womb to improve care for extremely premature babies - and remarkable animal testing suggests the first-of-its-kind watery incubation so closely mimics mom that it just might work.
Today, premature infants weighing as little as a pound are hooked to ventilators and other machines inside incubators. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is aiming for a gentler solution, to give the tiniest preemies a few more weeks cocooned in a womb-like environment treating them more like fetuses than newborns in hopes of giving them a better chance of healthy survival.
The researchers created a fluid-filled transparent container to simulate how fetuses float in amniotic fluid inside mom’s uterus, and attached it to a mechanical placenta that keeps blood oxygenated.
“ This is astounding! To think in my lifetime this could be in use for human babies who’ve been born prematurely is just amazing. I picture quiet dark nurseries where moms and dads can sit next to their little developing babies and read to them and talk to them, still mimicking pregnancy, until they’re ready to be “born” from their artificial wombs... Although I recognize that complicates ethical issues will arise from this, and can list a dozen off the top of my head, I guess I’m choosing to focus on the very basic concept of how it can help mothers and babies when premature birth happens in an otherwise healthy, wanted pregnancy.” Sabrina Sasser
Researchers are creating an artificial womb to improve care for extremely premature babies - and remarkable animal testing suggests the first-of-its-kind watery incubation so closely mimics mom that it just might work.
Today, premature infants weighing as little as a pound are hooked to ventilators and other machines inside incubators. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is aiming for a gentler solution, to give the tiniest preemies a few more weeks cocooned in a womb-like environment treating them more like fetuses than newborns in hopes of giving them a better chance of healthy survival.
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