A group of researchers has achieved that a sheep born prematurely can develop until it reaches term with an artificial uterus. Perhaps when reading this you have the feeling that you have read this news before: and so it is. This is the second time it is achieved, and the novelty is that this time the team of scientists who have achieved it is totally different who achieved it a few months ago.
This makes the invention much more promising, by demonstrating that with the same instruments and the same technology, different professionals can succeed.
A premature lamb
As we read in IFLSciencie, for the most recent work, researchers were made with a lamb born a week before, Y by means of the artificial uterus they took it to term, so that he was "born" just when by gestation time he was affected.
The research has been published in the journal American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and comes to add to the previous one as a sign of the success of using an artificial external uterus that can achieve the right conditions, free of risk of infection, so that extremely prematurely born fetuses may be more likely to survive.
It could save the lives of many babies
I confess that when I saw the news for the first time, a few months ago, I was not sure whether to rejoice or worry. It reminded me too much of Matrix, or that possible future in which humans are no longer born to women, but in artificial wombs, and the repercussions that this could bring (imagine bad people brewing babies for their own benefit for the darkest purposes, and you will understand my concern).
However, at least for now, this will not be possible, since the device is not intended to produce fetuses from day one, but for very premature babies, already trained, that they need to keep maturing.
More than half of very premature babies end up dying, and of those that survive, some do so with often problematic health conditions: various operations, periodic medical checks, certain developmental deficits, etc.
Well, for all of them, these investigations seem very promising, since they are using animals whose gestation equals 23 weeks of human babies, and provide them with the appropriate means to complete them.
Can you imagine the difference that it can make to have a 23-week-old baby connected to dozens of tubes, probes and catheters, in the incubator, to have it inside a small bag with a liquid similar to the amniotic, still receiving oxygen and food by its umbilical cord ?
But ... it gives a lot of impression
So is. That is one of the main pitfalls to take the final step towards its use with human babies. The main benefit, to ensure that the fetus is isolated from the outside inside a bag, is at the same time an event that will require some normalization.
It is not the same to have the baby outside, but hearing him cry and watching him sleep, than in a bag full of liquid without feeling that he is still here, in this world, and so we will have to get used to this technology little by little.
