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Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are studying placentas at birth in a local hospital to identify structural changes in fetal membranes that may help determine the likely timing of a premature birth.
The Morgridge Institute for Research began this month to study four placentas from UnityPoint Health-Meriter, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. The study could examine up to 70 placentas, which are usually discarded.
University scientists are also hoping to create fiber optic cameras and improve ultrasound technology to help doctors see changes in fetal or cervical members that could indicate early delivery.
"We want to learn the different ways things can go wrong," said Kayvan Samimi, a postdoctoral researcher who leads the project. "The long-term goal is to … make a catheter, a small catheter that a clinician could use to study the integrity of membranes, the health of pregnancy."
The researchers hope that light can help identify small changes in the membranes that ultrasound can not detect.
"You can see things smaller with light than with sound," said Melissa Skala, a mechanical engineering investigator in Morgridge.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, babies born early may not be well nourished, have a developmental delay, and have difficulty breathing, seeing and hearing. Black pregnant women with low socio-economic status, or younger or older than usual maternal age are at increased risk of premature labor, the CDC said.
But Dr. Helen Feltovich, an obstetrician from the UW-Madison faculty, said it was almost impossible to tell if or when a woman could give birth quickly.
Feltovich, a specialist in high-risk births, told a story in which a woman seemed to be well, but her fetal membranes broke suddenly, causing the loss of her twins.
"That's why we do this work," Feltovich said. "It happens all the time, and it's really sad, and we do not know why."
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This story has been corrected to show that the school is the University of Wisconsin-Madison, not Madison University.
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