Artificial Placenta: A Novel Approach for Preterm Neonates: Review of Literature

Abstract

Preterm birth is one of the most common causes of neonatal morbidity and mortality worldwide. Furthermore the mortality and morbidity is very high in extremely preterm infants born before 28 completed weeks of gestation or those with extremely low birth weight for gestational age (<1000 g). One of the major causes for such a high morbidity and mortality in such infants is respiratory insufficiency, due to poor lung maturity. To overcome these problems and to reduce overall burden of morbidity and mortality associated with immature pulmonary development in preterm neonates, the concept of "artificial placenta" came into picture, which is basically a pump less lung assisted device connected to umbilical vessels that helps in gaseous exchange in neonates with severe respiratory insufficiency. Hence, the present study will allow us to throw light on recent developments in the field of use of artificial placenta technology for saving many more lives of preterm, low birth weight neonates. Method: Literature regarding preterm births and use of artificial placenta for saving lives was searched from various English language journals, Government sites, WHO, UNICEF data, published peer-reviewed articles on PubMed, MEDLINE, Embase and Google Scholar till 2017. Abstract