‘Artificial womb for super-preemies works with sheep’

PARIS: An artificial womb filled with clear liquid, successfully tested on pre-natal lambs, could help extremely premature babies avoid death or life-long disability, researchers reported Tuesday.

“It is designed to continue what naturally occurs in the womb,” said Alan Flake, a foetal surgeon at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and senior author of a study in Nature Communications that details the breakthrough.

“That’s the beauty of it, and why I’m optimistic we will improve on what is currently done for extremely premature babies,” he told journalists by phone.

Today, infants brought into the world after only 22 or 23 weeks of gestation rather than the full 40 have a 50/50 chance of living, and — for those that survive — a 90 per cent change of severe and lasting health problems.

The new system mimics life in the uterus and could, if approved for human use, dramatically improve those odds.

The researchers are working with the US Food and Drug Administration to prepare human trials, which could start within three years.

The foetus — breathing liquid, as it would in the womb — lies in a clear-plastic sack filled with a synthetic amniotic fluid.

“A fluid environment is critical for foetal development,” said Flake. — AFP