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An extra-uterine system to physiologically support the extreme premature lamb

Emily A. Partridge, Marcus G. Davey, Matthew A. Hornick

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Patrick E. McGovern, Ali Y. Mejaddam, Jesse D. Vrecenak, Carmen Mesas-Burgos, Aliza Olive, Robert C. Caskey, Theodore R. Weiland, Jiancheng Han, Alexander J. Schupper, James T. Connelly, Kevin C. Dysart, Jack Rychik, Holly L. Hedrick, William H. Peranteau, Alan W. Flake

2017 · Nature Communications

Neuroscience
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From the abstract

Abstract In the developed world, extreme prematurity is the leading cause of neonatal mortality and morbidity due to a combination of organ immaturity and iatrogenic injury. Until now, efforts to extend gestation using extracorporeal systems have achieved limited success. Here we report the development of a system that incorporates a pumpless oxygenator circuit connected to the fetus of a lamb via an umbilical cord interface that is maintained within a closed ‘amniotic fluid’ circuit that closely reproduces the environment of the womb. We show that fetal lambs that are developmentally equivalent to the extreme premature human infant can be physiologically supported in this extra-uterine device for up to 4 weeks. Lambs on support maintain stable haemodynamics, have normal blood gas and oxygenation parameters and maintain patency of the fetal circulation. With appropriate nutritional support, lambs on the system demonstrate normal somatic growth, lung maturation and brain growth and myelination.

Metadata: Crossref. Abstracts retain their original authors’ rights.

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Original HN comments, with labels from simple text rules. A label describes the whole comment and may miss context or irony. Read the discussion to make up your own mind. About the labels

7 selected excerpts · 7 total mentions

genxy
Neutral mention · rule
Higher quality video that shows how to replicate the process (along with a nice timelapse of the chick developing) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE0uKvUbcfw A Novel Shell-less Culture System for Chick Embryos Using a Plastic Film as Culture Vessels https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jpsa/51/3/51_0130043/_a... An extra-uterine system to physiologically support the extreme premature lamb https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15112 Assessment of extremely premature lambs supported by the Extrauterine Environment for Neonatal Development (EXTEND) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11772227/ 4H is gonna be wild in 5 years.
Original comment Artificial egg hatched 26 healthy chickens
echelon
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> "This isn't a problem because of science fiction" isn't a terribly realistic answer to the concerns being raised. This isn't a step function difficult thing to do [1-3]. Nobody is doing it because it's "icky". [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5116034/ [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6511668/ [3] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15112
Original comment Wealthy People Are Getting Full-Body Scans. Early Detection or Unnecessary?
elil17
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Scientists have developed artificial wombs, although they are fairly limited right now. They supported a premature lamb fetus from the late 2nd trimester for four weeks in an artificial womb until it could be kept alive by traditional neonatal care. The lambs did not have the lung or brain damage characteristic of extremely premature births. https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/25/15421734/artificial-womb-... https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15112
Original comment Artificial womb facility concept for 30k babies per year
webmaven
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> abortions the woman chose to take the action whose sole biological purpose is pregnancy. If you think that, you really haven't been doing it right. Pleasure, companionship, comfort, reinforcement of social status, and many other purposes are commonly fulfilled by the act of sex, including between same sex partners. But let us say that you're correct. That still leaves 1% of pregnancies that are involuntary. What should women be allowed to do then? We aren't going to agree on when a fertilized egg becomes a person (I think you would say immediately, I would say only when viable outside the womb), but let's set that aside. I don't think women should be forced to continue…
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an unwanted pregnancy. You don't think destroying the fetus at any point is moral. What if we could both get what we want?: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15112 Please note that unless women are provided with comprehensive sex education that includes contraception, there are going to be a lot more unwanted babies being born, regardless of how they are brought to term. This imposes a lot of costs on society that I hope you have some sort of plan to cover.
Original comment The Supreme Court just gutted the constitutional right to effective counsel
gliese1337
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The original source, with the actual science: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15112 It's not quite a total replacement for a natural womb (and the Nature article only uses the word "womb once, in the abstract), as it can't grow a fetus from an embryo; you have to start with a pre-incubated fetus that already has an umbilical ford to plug into and a strong enough heart. But even though we won't be growing test-tube babies 100% in-vitro with this thing, it is a major advance that could significantly push back the earliest time at which a premature baby could remain viable with artificial incubation.
Original comment An artificial womb successfully grew baby sheep

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