Biobag successfully grows premature foetus’

A unique womb-like environment designed by paediatric researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) has successfully mimicked the prenatal fluid-filled environment to give pre-term newborn lambs more time to develop their lungs and other organs.

Published in Nature Communications the fetal lambs grew in a temperature-controlled, near-sterile environment, breathing amniotic fluid as they normally do in the womb, their hearts pumping blood through their umbilical cord into a gas exchange machine outside the bag.

Electronic monitors measured vital signs, blood flow and other crucial functions.

The goal is to support infants from 23 weeks to 28 weeks gestational age, by which time the chances of survival increases from 30 per cent to 80 per cent.

Study leader Alan W. Flake, MD, a fetal surgeon and director of the Center for Fetal Research in the Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment at CHOP, said: “Our system could prevent the severe morbidity suffered by extremely premature infants by potentially offering a medical technology that does not currently exist.”

Flake said: “These infants have an urgent need for a bridge between the mother’s womb and the outside world. If we can develop an extra-uterine system to support growth and organ maturation for only a few weeks, we can dramatically improve outcomes for extremely premature babies.”