Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Jul 9:37:12947.
doi: 10.3389/ti.2024.12947. eCollection 2024.

A Volume-Adjustable Artificial Womb for Extremely Preterm Infants

Jan Heyer  1 , Franziska Schubert  1 , Alexander L Seitz  1 , Yannick Steinle  1 , Jutta Arens  2 , Thorsten Orlikowsky  3 , Ulrich Steinseifer  1 , Thomas Schmitz-Rode  1 , Sebastian V Jansen #  1 , Mark Schoberer #  3
Affiliations

A Volume-Adjustable Artificial Womb for Extremely Preterm Infants

Jan Heyer et al. Transpl Int. .

Abstract

More than 13 million children are born preterm annually. Prematurity-related mortality accounts for 0.9 million deaths worldwide. The majority of those affected are Extremely Preterm Infants (gestational age less than 28 weeks). Immaturity causes organ failure and specific morbidities like germinal matrix hemorrhage, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, and necrotizing enterocolitis. Artificial womb and placenta technologies address these issues. As a bridge-to-life technology, they provide a liquid environment to allow organ maturation under more physiological conditions. The proposed artificial womb can adapt to fetal growth. Volume adjustment is achieved by removing fluid from the interspace between an inner and outer chamber. Results of the in vitro tests showed a temperature constancy of 36.8°C ± 0.3°C without pressure loss over 7 days. The volume of the inner sac was variable between 3.6 and 7.0 L. We designed a filtration and disinfection system for this particular purpose. This system has proven strong disinfection capabilities, effective filtering of metabolic waste, and the ability to avoid phospholipid washout. The presented artificial womb has sufficient volume variability to adapt to the physiologic growth of an extremely preterm neonate over a 4-week period. We regard this as an important step in the development of this bridge-to-life technology.

Keywords: adjustable silicone sac; artificial amniotic sac; artificial womb; extremely preterm infant; perinatal life support.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
LFC prototype top view (A); side view (B), general design of the liquid-filled chamber as a CAD rendering sectional view (D), and the UV chamber of the filtration system as a CAD rendering sectional view (D).
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
visualization of the growth of the system from 3.6 L filling volume of the inner sac [dashed line (A)] to 6.8 L filling volume of the inner sac [dashed line (B)].
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Results of the filtration system washout with bubble count on the y-axis and time on the x-axis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ohuma EO, Moller A-B, Bradley E, Chakwera S, Hussain-Alkhateeb L, Lewin A, et al. National, Regional, and Global Estimates of Preterm Birth in 2020, With Trends From 2010: A Systematic Analysis. Lancet (London, England) (2023) 402(10409):1261–71. 10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00878-4 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Jobe AH, Bancalari E. Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia. Am J Respir Crit Care Med (2001) 163(7):1723–9. 10.1164/ajrccm.163.7.2011060 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Stoll BJ, Hansen NI, Bell EF, Walsh MC, Carlo WA, Shankaran S, et al. Trends in Care Practices, Morbidity, and Mortality of Extremely Preterm Neonates, 1993-2012. JAMA (2015) 314(10):1039–51. 10.1001/jama.2015.10244 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Stoll BJ, Hansen NI, Bell EF, Shankaran S, Laptook AR, Walsh MC, et al. Neonatal Outcomes of Extremely Preterm Infants From the NICHD Neonatal Research Network. Pediatrics (2010) 126(3):443–56. 10.1542/peds.2009-2959 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Joshi S, Kotecha S. Lung Growth and Development. Early Hum Dev (2007) 83(12):789–94. 10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2007.09.007 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources