Can We Make an Artificial Womb?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 9 November 2018
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From IVF to premature babies we explore what science we would need to make a baby outside the body in a pursuit to answer a question from Nigerian listener, Aminu asking: Can we make an artificial womb?
To find out, presenter Nastaran Tavakoli-Far gets very close to a uterus transplant operation, peers at the earliest cells of a placenta, and sees a disembodied womb being kept alive in a box full of artificial blood. She asks how close current reproductive medicine brings us to gestating babies in a lab.
Producer: Rory Galloway
(Photo: A human fetus. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:30.3 | I'm a furtainish on a duke. This is the crowd science podcast from the BBC World Service. It's a |
| 0:43.6 | is the crowd science podcast from the BBC World Service. It's a science show where we get close, very close |
| 0:46.7 | to the real life science that answers your questions |
| 0:49.4 | from around the world. |
| 0:51.0 | I'm Nasrantavakolifatat and today I'm in an operating theater with two |
| 0:55.3 | patients laid out in front of me on tables surrounded by about 20 surgeons. |
| 1:00.1 | This is the oratory here. About the same artery here. |
| 1:03.0 | Pansating thing here. |
| 1:05.0 | This is the vein. |
| 1:07.0 | So the uterus is going to be put like a kidney. |
| 1:11.0 | I'm with the world's leading womb transplant surgeon Dr. |
| 1:15.1 | Matt Branstrom he's describing the process of cleaning up the blood vessels low down in |
| 1:20.4 | the pelvis to which he'll reattach the organ, which is also known as the uterus. |
| 1:25.0 | I'll come back to the surgery later, but the reason I'm at the literal cutting edge of scientific progress |
| 1:31.0 | is because on crowd science, our listeners send us questions like this. |
... |
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