Anti-abortion advocates see promise in artificial womb technology, or AWT, for increasing the chances of survival outside of the womb for premature infants.
Questions about the ethics of such a technology arose this week after the Independent Pediatric Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration met on Tuesday and Wednesday to assess whether to advise the FDA to grant an investigational device exception to devices that essentially replicate the environment of a uterus to continue the process of fetal development.
"Artificial womb technology is a proposed therapeutic strategy that aims to bridge the period between extreme preterm birth and later gestation to allow for organ maturation in a system that mimics the womb environment and provides artificial placental support for nutrition and gas exchange," reads a briefing document provided by the FDA to the Washington Examiner.
In the United States, 10% of live births are of premature infants, most of whom are born after 37 weeks gestation. Still, premature birth accounts for 65% of U.S. infant mortality, with the majority of deaths each year consisting of children under 28 weeks gestation. "It's instructive to look at how existing incubators [or] 'artificial wombs' are used — they support babies who can't safely stay with their mothers; they're a harm-minimizer, not an equivalent," said Libresco Sargeant."And babies who receive extensive medical support still benefit from kangaroo care when possible — they need active love and tenderness, not just fluids and monitors.
Robin Pierucci, an anti-abortion neonatologist with 25 years of clinical practice, told the Washington Examiner that although there is great promise for this technology for keeping premature and unborn patients alive, she is concerned that more data on safety and efficacy is necessary in the immediate term before use on human infants.
Pierucci emphasized the need for trials in non-human primates, the gold standard of medical animal testing. FDA briefing materials indicate, however, that the small size of primate fetuses at the equivalent stage of human gestation would make cardiovascular intervention tremendously difficult.
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