[Experimental perinatology--development of extrauterine fetal incubation system]

It goes without saying that the ideal situation for the immature fetus is growth within the normal environment of the maternal organism. Thus, in order to perform incubation that more closely resembles that of the fetus in utero, both in the extracorporeal and intracorporeal environment, an extrauterine fetal incubator, consisting of an artificial womb containing artificial amniotic fluid and a complete artificial placental system with a membrane oxygenator, was developed. Although similar experiments were performed in fetal lambs by Callaghan et al., Alexander et al., and Zapol et al., the fetuses only survived incubation for short periods of time, no longer than 55 hours. Previously, we reported the relatively long-term extrauterine incubation of goat fetuses, where by the longest period of incubation was 236 hours. However, several major problems, remained to be resolved. Here we present the case in which we succeeded in incubating a goat fetus for 3 weeks, followed by a trial birth from an artificial womb.