The technology may save human infants in future.
Offers extra time for lungs to develop
In a world-first, scientists have demonstrated the ability of an ‘artificial womb’ to support extremely premature lambs, an advance that may one day save human infants.
The research, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, shows that an artificial placenta-based life support platform can maintain lamb foetuses weighing 600 to 700 gm.
While previous research has demonstrated the feasibility of extended survival with artificial placenta technology in late pre-term foetuses, there was no published evidence that demonstrated the use of the platform to support extremely pre-term foetuses — the eventual clinical target of this technology.
“For several decades, there has been little improvement in outcomes of extremely pre-term infants born at the border of viability (21-24 weeks gestation),” said Matt Kemp, an associate professor at Tohoku University in Japan.
“We have proven the use of this technology to support, for the first time, extremely pre-term lambs equivalent to 24 weeks of human gestation in a stable, growth-normal state for five days, said Mr. Kemp.
The findings represent a significant milestone in the technology’s future implementation in clinical use.
“The goal is to offer a bridge between a natural womb and the outside world to give babies born at the earliest gestational ages more time for their fragile lungs to mature,” he said.
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