A new endoscopic fetal surgery technique seemed like a major breakthrough for surgeons at the Fetal Treatment Center at the University of California. But the scale of the procedure proved to be so small that the doctors couldn't monitor what they were doing.
Now, NASA's Ames Research Center has developed a device the size of a pill that, once inserted in the womb, can monitor changes in body temperature, uterine contractions, and other vital signs.
"This minimally invasive method represents the future of fetal surgery," said Dr. Michael Harrison, founding director of the Fetal Treatment Center, in a statement last month. In 1981, Harrison performed the first-ever corrective surgery on a fetus.
The miniature monitor promises to lessen the complications of pre-term labor -- a problem that can occur during intra-uterine surgery, often ending in the death of the fetus. Soon, doctors will use the one-third by one-and one-third-inch transmitter to let them know when pre-term labor threatens.
"Once they close up the mom, doctors have no way of monitoring their real patient -- the baby," said Mike Skidmore, deputy manager of the Sensors 2000 project at Ames. He said doctors will insert the fetal monitor through 10 millimeter tubes. Once in place, it will send data on pressure and temperature within the uterus, and the strength and duration of contractions.
Before doctors at the Fetal Treatment Center developed the endoscopic fetal surgery about a year ago, they used a Caesarean method to correct fetal defects -- a far more invasive procedure.
Doctors must write a whole new chapter on fetal monitoring before they can make practical use of the new monitor, which is not yet in regular use. Because physicians have never had access to so much information about the fetus before -- including pressure data from within the uterus -- Skidmore said that they must learn to distinguish a real problem from normal conditions.
