The Future Includes Babies born from Artificial Wombs

Science has come a long way. It is now estimated that in less than 10 years, scientists will grow human embryos in a lab using high-tech artificial wombs.

This research will indefinitely change the way we view pregnancy, childbirth and our evolution as the human race.

Doctors at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia are working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in regards to testing artificial wombs and their ability to grow a human embryo, within the next two years.

If this research is successful, there may be another option for couples and individuals who are looking to bring new life into this world.

A ten-year plan for these clinical trials would determine whether artificial wombs are safe and effective, with the potential to prevent many of the medical complications which can arise during pregnancy and childbirth.

Researchers from the Women and Infants Research Foundation, the University of Western Australia, and Tohoku University Hospital, Japan developed what they refer to as EVE therapy, a device, and method which has already successfully incubated healthy baby lambs in an ex-vivo uterine environment (EVE) for a one-week period.

This technology is essentially a “high-tech amniotic fluid bath combined with an artificial placenta. Put those together, and with careful maintenance what you’ve got is an artificial womb”, says lead researcher Matt Kemp of UWE.

Implementing an artificial womb on an embryo would allow us to control the environment without restricting a women’s autonomy, and as philosopher Anna Smajdor states “There are ways in which this could actually benefit the fetus itself”.

This is a major advancement for our pioneering technology, and as the research unfolds, may pertain to a biotechnological breakthrough.