Artificial womb in a bag

I know this sounds gory but read on and imagine how many prem babies could be saved.

Alan Flake, head of foetal research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, has devised an artificial womb to improve the survival chances of very premature babies. It’s been successfully tested on lambs.

Babies born at 22-23 weeks’ gestation now routinely survive birth but around 85% die soon afterwards and many of those who survive are left with permanent health problems.

One of the difficulties is getting oxygen to their immature lungs without mechanical ventilation damaging the fragile organs.

Now, the team in the US says it thinks it has found a means of letting such babies safely develop out of the womb, in a sac filled with artificial amniotic fluid.

In the tests, lambs delivered prematurely by Caesarean section were placed in the sealed biobags, linked by their umbilical cords to a gas exchanger which, acting like placenta, delivered nutrients and replenished their blood oxygen.

The baby animals floated for four weeks in this temperature controlled environment, turning from pink foetuses into woolly lambs with open eyes and good lung function.

The researchers hope to test the system on human foetuses, but stress that it will first be refined.

“I don’t want this to be visualised as humans hanging on the walls in bags,” said Dr Flake.

“This is not how this device will work or look.”