"EXTEND," the system that mimics the mother's womb.

Imitating Nature

There is a stage of life that has remained virtually unchanged to this day. Regardless of the era, culture, or level of technological development, every human being began in exactly the same way: inside a womb. This is the environment capable of providing oxygen, nutrients, immune protection, and all the conditions necessary for the development of a new life. But what if that dependency were to begin to disappear?

For the first time, scientists are developing technologies capable of replicating some of the biological womb's most complex functions outside the body. We are still a long way from fully artificial gestation, but recent advances show that what once seemed impossible is slowly moving from theory into the laboratory.

The immediate goal is not to replace pregnancy, but to save lives.

Every year, thousands of extremely premature babies are born before their lungs are ready to function. To keep them alive, medicine relies on incubators and mechanical ventilators; the problem is that premature exposure to air can often cause permanent damage to lung tissue.

In an effort to address this challenge, researchers developed a system known as "Extend." Instead of being placed in a traditional incubator, the baby remains fully submerged in a fluid similar to amniotic fluid. The umbilical cord stays connected to an external circuit that supplies oxygen and nutrients—much like in a natural pregnancy—without requiring the lungs to work prematurely.

Tests conducted so far, primarily on animals, have shown that this artificial environment allows extremely premature fetuses to continue maturing for weeks before facing the outside world.