Ewe, get a womb! Docs grow baby lambs in shrink-wrap plastic bags Scientists in Philadelphia have created a plastic womb that has successfully incubated eight premature lambs – and the doctors behind the project say they will be ready for human trials within three years. The machine, described in the journal Nature Communications, consists of a plastic bag which is kept full of electrolyte …
Makes me think of Brave New World.
But then while Huxley thought he was writing about a dystopia, most people would actually have wanted to live in it, had it existed. No genetic defects, every child wanted, free medicine. Being incubated in a jar would be a small price to pay.
One of my girls was very premature via emergency caesarian.
The fears were that she wouldn't get the final 'booster shot' via the placenta that is vital for early development.
She had medication (while in the womb) to try and advance lung development and other last minute tweaks - she managed to breathe OK, early oxygen was a concern as it can bugger up sight development, various issues had to be dealt with as some hormones etc.did not get delivered by the time she had to come out.
The idea of keeping development contained to allow better maturity before birth is a great idea -- if nothing else it will save huge amounts of money and resources currently needed in fire-fighting for the first few months.
And here. My daughter was 10 weeks prem via C-section and looked like an oversize rind of bacon. Now 14 and healthy and intelligent, but we had quite a few weeks of worry as they pumped her full of steroids.
Here's hoping that in years to come this will be as mainstream and accepted as the perspex "cheese container" incubators now are.
Ditto - my son, now a healthy three year old, was born 11 weeks prem and spent 8 weeks being cared for in neonatal intensive care. His mum had 2 huge shots of steroids to advance the development of his lungs and we were lucky enough to get away with only a few scares before he came home.
Having seen the heartbreak of other parents (and staff) in NICU, when things hadn't gone as well as they did for us, something like this would be a great step forward and hugely applauded.
Having been delivered of two daughters close to full-term and alarmed at how fragile they looked I can only imagine what parents of premature babies must go through. But I would absolutely understand their interest in whatever intervention reduced the risks.
As for the "it looks weird" argument, trust me pretty much everything looks weird when it comes to human reproduction.
With no comment on any ethical or moral issues, they can now create embryos 'in vitro', and artificially extend the 'in utero' portion where it ends prematurely, How difficult would it be to handle the portion in the middle? I presume there are a number of hormones etc that would need to be provided? Any medical experts with opinions?
How difficult would it be to handle the portion in the middle?
I'm no expert but I'd say that's by far and away the hardest part. I could see this technique being extended backwards to handle a fetus with just five or even four months of growth, but it basically needs a vein and an artery to work with, which is going to get progressively more difficult the smaller the fetus. Then the problem at the other end is handling embryogenesis, from implantation and gastrulation onwards. I don't know if we even know yet what hormones and growth factors might be necessary to trigger gene expression and cell differentiation correctly, or when to apply them.
Trust me, when parents are faced with their newly born children suffering from anything, they will go through hell to try to deal with it.
I had to stay in hospital and learn to pass a feed tube up my daughter's nose and into her stomach and that is nothing compared to what some of the other parents had to deal with while I was in Great Ormond Street. Children born premature, without a pancreas, without limbs, one without a face but when it is your child you will do what you must.
We are wired to protect our children, it shouldn't be any other way. This is not growing clones, it is improving the chances of very unlucky children and their families to look forward to a normal life.
People saying this looks disturbing sure it may do but firstly its a prototype and secondly if you took out a womb with an infant inside then how do you think it would look.
If this was to ever develop into a used treatment they would make all efforts to make it look better (as much as is possible anyway).
The thing I am concerned with is not the technology but its the application of it. It can be used to save babies lives one of the most noble of uses you could get. I could also see this being used to turn humans into nothing more than products to be grown to order. Sci-fi often touched on this like in space above and beyond where humans were grown to fill a labour gap. So basically were grown to be slaves and were of lesser standing than normal humans.
Now this is an extream example possibly but if this tech exists its not impossible and do we really have faith that it will never be abused?
Actually if you watch the vid you'll see they've been very careful to note the tech is for Mothers at high risk of premature birth around the 23-24 week which is also the abortion cut off date
That said there are babies born considerably younger and the question may eventually be asked if it the technology could be extended backwards.
That however will be an ethical conversation that will await successful trials.
Remember this is V 0.2 tech at best.
No one's going to be running any GE super soldier programmes with this tech just yet.
"the tech is for Mothers at high risk of premature birth around the 23-24 week which is also the abortion cut off date"
has anyone ELSE drawn the obvious conclusion from this, i.e. instead of killing the fetus...
(but hey saving lives is a good thing so there ya go)
/me waits through uncomfortable silence that results from posting this
You mean that one women's premature baby is another women's abortion?
That's been the case for at least the last 30 years.
However given the way this issue stirs up the SEL contingent of US politics no sensible discussion can be had on the subject.
Personally I'd find out what the slowest abnormality test takes for defects and extend the termination limit to that.
There's a Life magazine cover from 1965 showing a picture of an "artificial womb" with a small fetus inside it (not sure if it was staged or real).
Like deep brain implants this seems to have been one of those technologies that the scientists of the time felt was somehow unacceptable to society and put on the shelf.
It's exciting to see people pursuing this once again.
Obvious SF reference would be JM Bujolds novel "Barryar, " although I doubt they've gotten round to considering the ability to apply in vitro treatments to the fetus that could be lethal to the Mother.
But WTF "1% of all US born babies are premature and the % has risen over the last 2-3 decades"
How does US compare with other countries?
Something is seriously f**king wrong.
Looks like a vacuum packed package to me.
But WTF "1% of all US born babies are premature and the % has risen over the last 2-3 decades"How does US compare with other countries?
It's not as bad as you might think:
"Of 65 countries with reliable trend data, all but 3 show an increase in preterm birth rates over the past 20 years. Possible reasons for this include better measurement, increases in maternal age and underlying maternal health problems such as diabetes and high blood pressure, greater use of infertility treatments leading to increased rates of multiple pregnancies, and changes in obstetric practices such as more caesarean births before term."
Although the upwards trend of some of those possible contributory factors isn't a good thing in itself.
More likely to do with "statistics". Like the great helmet controversy of WW1 where the introduction of the battle bowler lead to an INCREASE in head injuries. (Because instead of soldier being killed by clods of earth raining down on them in an artillery strike they merely received non fatal head wounds).
In this case improved in-utero diagnostics, increased knowledge about care for premature infants and better ways of keeping a child alive means doctors are sooner going to decide to allow the child to be born early, where they would have let is stay in the womb before. Thus an increase in premature babies. (Instead of a whole lot of near full term stillborn babies that might have survived by being delivered premature nowadays)
Oops, fingers slipped on keyboard.
As the authors were very clear to point out this does not lower the survival threshold below the termination limit.
But premature babies have survived well below the maximum termination limit and have done so long before now, although I'm not sure how much care they've needed in later life to deal with the side effects of stopping further development assisted by their Mother at such an early stage. The question of course would be if a pregnant women came into the ER and went into labor at 22 or 23 weeks what would they do? "No sorry can't help you" or would they rush baby and fetus to the ITU? IDK but I think sooner or later someone will have to make that call.
Other interesting side effects of this technology would include pre-natal adoption and wheather people would choose to transfer to a support chamber if it was proved the environment was more stable and less stressful to the fetus.
Again this is on the boundary between medical necessity and social preferences.
I cannot wait for the Alt Right in America to get on this. Info Wars Alex Jones will get even more angry, saying probably
"They want to take the foetuses from abortion clinics and raise a cyborg army with mind control implants! with the internet of things the first step to the rise of the machines!"
Should be in capitals I know.
Anything that helps premature babies should be applauded, yes is does look uncomfortable to some, but the new always is. If it didn't, we would still be in caves.
P.S. They have found the article on the Mirror website
https://www.infowars.com/plastic-bag-style-artificial-womb-that-keeps-the-most-premature-babies-alive-developed-by-scientists/
Alex has not read it yet!
The bit of the article that struck me was that the researchers had to start off funding this research out of their own pockets as they presumably couldn't get funding. Total annual cost of premature births to the US - around $48 billion dollars. Not funding this research is a classic example of the insanity that can result from the current extremely risk adverse grant process.
What's the betting that mothers in the third trimester now start having C-sections early and popping baby in a bag for no reason other than they won't have to carry to full term?
Just think - far fewer stretch marks, back to work earlier, what's not to like?
After all - "it's their body".
I think it's an under rated film from the opening scene (which most door staff will cringe at. Listen carefully) to the arrival of the assault team to take down the kidnappers.
Much of it had me in stitches.
Parental advisory. Violence, gore, offensive language from the outset, suicide advocacy. *
*Just complying with the UK internet access filter rules.
..that thinks it would be really cool to use this to see a developing embryo from the very early stages to birth?
I know a lot of people will be unhappy about the concept ethically, but wouldn't it be awesome to see a mammal (not necessarily a human) develop in real time without needing to use ultrasound and other tricks to see the progress?
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