BY AUBREY ROSE ALEJANDRO
THE CONCEPT of babies not requiring human womb is a hot topic in medicine today.
Due to technological advances, many babies born at 22 to 23 weeks of gestation have survived. However, the majority of them have permanent disabilities such as cerebral palsy and lung disease.
Scientists have thus developed an apparatus known as the “artificial womb.”
An artificial womb, also known as a bio bag, enables an infant to be conceived outside of the human body. Ectogenesis is the scientific term for pregnancy conducted outside the uterus. It was first tested on a baby sheep, and the results were productive. The lambs were in the external wombs for four weeks and appeared to develop normally just as much as they would have inside their mothers.
Numerous developments were monitored over the course of four weeks. Their lungs and brains expanded, they sprouted wool, and opened their eyes.
It’s fascinating to imagine a future when artificial wombs produce babies, thereby reducing the health risks associated with pregnancy. However, it has so far only been tested on a sheep.
“It’s important not to get ahead of the data,” says Alan Flake, a fetal surgeon at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It’s complete science fiction to think that you can take an embryo and get it through the early developmental process and put it on our machine without the mother being the critical element there,” he added.
Meanwhile, Dutch researchers have been bestowed a €2.9 million funding to create a working prototype of an artificial womb for use in health centers. Researchers at Metropolis University of Technology are working on a model that will allow infants to breathe. Unlike current incubators, the substitute uterus would be almost identical to biological conditions, with the baby enclosed by fluids and receiving oxygen and nutrients via a synthetic placenta that would connect to their umbilical cord.
However, current approaches are complex because premature infants’ lungs and intestines have not yet sufficiently matured, which means that attempting to carry oxygen or nutrients directly to their organs can cause major damage, according to Guid Oei, a professor at the Dutch university and gynecologist at the nearby Maxima medical center.
Guid Oei also added that the experiment on the lamb was very important because it shows it is indeed possible to keep an animal alive for four weeks in that apparatus. Their team is currently working on a prototype that will replace the womb for human babies. They hope to have a working prototype of their artificial womb ready for use in the coming years./PN
