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categories: ["reproduction", "bodies"]categories: ["reproduction", "bodies"]tags: ["reproduction", "ectogenesis", "prematurity", "neonatology", "bioethics", "medical devices"]tags: ["reproduction", "ectogenesis", "prematurity", "neonatology", "bioethics", "medical devices"]summary: "A device that sustains fetal development outside a body by perfusing the umbilical circulation while the fetus remains immersed in fluid, tested so far only in animals."summary: "A device that sustains fetal development outside a body by perfusing the umbilical circulation while the fetus remains immersed in fluid, tested so far only in animals."updated: "2026-07-27"updated: "2026-08-23"humanEvidence: "No human has been supported by a modern system and no trial has enrolled anyone; the results are from preterm lambs, and 1960s perfusion of previable human fetuses produced no survivors."humanEvidence: "No human has been supported by a modern system and no trial has enrolled anyone; the results are from preterm lambs, and 1960s perfusion of previable human fetuses produced no survivors."access: "Nothing to obtain: the systems exist only as research prototypes in a handful of laboratories, and no regulator has authorised a first-in-human trial."access: "Nothing to obtain: the systems exist only as research prototypes in a handful of laboratories, and no regulator has authorised a first-in-human trial."reversibility: "difficult"reversibility: "difficult"lines 43–48 → 43–5228 unchanged lines not shown
## How it works## How it works The design problem is that a fetal lung is not a lung yet. Below roughly 26 weeks of human gestation the alveoli are too few and too thick-walled for gas exchange, and mechanical ventilation of such a lung causes the chronic injury known as bronchopulmonary dysplasia. Conventional neonatal intensive care manages this trade-off; an artificial womb tries to avoid it by never asking the lung to breathe.The design problem is that a fetal lung is not a lung yet. Below roughly 26 weeks of human gestation the alveoli are too few and too thick-walled for gas exchange, and mechanical ventilation of such a lung causes the chronic injury known as bronchopulmonary dysplasia. Conventional neonatal intensive care manages this trade-off; an artificial womb tries to avoid it by never asking the lung to breathe. ```figure{"key": "biobag-system-design", "caption": "Figure 1 of the 2017 lamb study. The circuit has no pump — the fetal heart drives blood through the low-resistance oxygenator, as it would through a placenta. The photographs show lambs at gestational days 111 and 135."}``` Four features distinguish the current systems from an incubator:Four features distinguish the current systems from an incubator: removed, struck through added, underlinedLine numbers count the serialised markdown of each revision, frontmatter included.
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