2017 is gradually winding down; the year had seen a lot of scientific breakthroughs and firsts. One of the biggest of them is on birth; the use of "artificial wombs" to grow lamb fetuses.
Some breakthroughs look like science fiction when you first hear of it. But scientists have been able to use this technology to grow lamb fetuses in an "artificial womb".
A Little Help from a Plastic Bag
In a publication titled An extra-uterine system to physiologically support the extreme premature lamb published in 25th April 2017, a group of researchers from Children's Hospital in Philadelphia in the USA showcased this technological breakthrough.
The artificial womb known as BioBag is a sealed polyethene bag that continuously circulates electrolyte rich fluids through an "umbilical cord" which is made up of connected oxygenator devices.
The artificial womb, called the Biobag, is a closed-fluid system that uses a pumpless circuit to continuously circulate electrolyte-rich fluids via the umbilical cord in a polyethene bag. In essence, it's a big sterile Ziploc bag with tubes coming out of it. Source
Source: Children's Hospital Philadelphia
The tubes serve as the channel to supply oxygen and nutrition as well as removing carbon dioxide from the from the Ziplock bag aka the artificial womb.
Using 3.5 to 4 months old lamb fetuses removed from their mothers by Caesarean section the researchers started their monitoring after they were placed in the bags.
The method, though unusual, produced very pretty great results as the lambs born via this method appeared very healthy with no defect, especially in their brains and lungs.
One of such lambs "delivered" via this method is currently a year old and doing well, according to Flake, one of the researcher.
The lambs were kept in the bags for up to four weeks. Most of them were then euthanised and examined. All of the lambs appeared to show healthy development, and the team found no abnormalities in the lambs’ brains and lungs. “These animals are, by any parameter we’ve measured, normal,”
Some of the lambs were “born” – removed from the bags and bottle-weaned. The oldest is now a year old and is doing well, say the team. Source: Newscientist
The Human Angle
This method of growing lamb fetuses until they are "birthed" have a huge application in babies born preterm (premature babies).
Preterm babies greatest problem is surviving being born preterm. Activities such seeing, hearing, walking, talking and developing into a healthy toddler becomes an uphill task. Most ended up having cerebral palsy.
Preterm births too have had a significant increase in the past three decades.
That is a problem that is not going away anytime soon.
The ultimate goal is to see if this technology could be used to make preterm babies have a higher survival rate.
Premature babies face mortality due to breathing in air through their developing lungs which would damage it according to a study.
This technology would allow premature babies "breath" in the "amniotic fluid" in the BioBag.
Ethical Consideration
The BioBag works on lambs fetuses at least 22 week old. If it were to work on humans, it
might shift goalposts on what people think about "viability" some states in the USA have between 14 weeks (to 20 weeks) to viability. The artificial uterus could allow viable unwanted pregnancies to come to term without the mother.
Presumably if a next-generation synthetic uterus changes what constitutes viability, a lawyer could argue that the limits on abortion should become more strict. (Still, over 90 percent of abortions occur at 13 weeks or less, so a future artificial womb would have to be a lot better than the current one.)
If it did work, though, maybe no one would ever get abortions. Source
References
Children Hospital Philadelphia on Premature Babies