10 Days of Ectogenesis at 20 Weeks of Life

• Yosinori Kuwabara and His Colleagues at Juntendou University, in Tokyo, Successfully Engineered a Working Artificial Womb

• • A clear acrylic tank the size of a large toaster oven, filled with eight quarts of artificial amniotic fluid, supports the growing fetus of a goat. Its umbilical cord is threaded to two machines that act as the placenta, pumping in blood, oxygen and nutrients and cleaning out waste.
  • The fetus is almost 20 weeks old, weighs about six pounds and has been living in the womb since it was removed from its mother by Caesarean section several days earlier and behaves like any other prenatal goat, blinking its soft black eyes and kicking its slender white limbs.
  • Dr. Kuwabara and his co-workers are striving to create a viable artificial womb, a system to sustain a developing infant when the real womb won't or can't. So far, the researchers have managed to keep their goats alive for up to 10 days.

• Angier, Natalie. “Baby in a Box” The New York Times. May 16, 1999. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9E00E3D9163AF935A25756C0A96F958260&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fOrganizations%2fJ%2fJohns%20Hopkins%20University>