Pregnant ladies endure every kind of medical checks. That is to watch the well being of each the mom and youngster and to detect potential abnormalities as early as doable.
Though the ultrasound technician checks the place of the placenta and umbilical cords throughout the 20-week ultrasound, little additional consideration is paid to it past that.
And that may be a disgrace, in response to Pascalle Wijntjes. She spent the previous 4 years working inside the Cardiovascular Biomechanics analysis group, mapping the placenta and investigating the way it may function an early indicator of widespread being pregnant problems.
On Tuesday July 1, Wijntjes defended her dissertation on the Division of Biomedical Engineering.
Bloody container
She has personally waited exterior the supply room a number of instances.
“After the newborn is born, the placenta detaches from the uterine wall and is expelled. Usually, the placenta finally ends up with the hospital waste, however happily, we have been capable of finding many ladies keen to donate their placentas for scientific analysis. We would obtain a bloody container and get to work on it as rapidly as doable.”
Wijntjes praises her college students, who she often assigned this process to. “With my mathematical background, I am not a lot of a hands-on individual. I would slightly sit behind my laptop computer than have my arms inside a placenta,” she says.
Over the course of her doctoral interval, she turned more and more impressed by the placenta; a really particular collaboration between mom and youngster.
“I wished to mannequin the placenta to foretell dangers of problems equivalent to preeclampsia. However I additionally realized that there’s nonetheless quite a bit we do not know concerning the placenta, each by way of its anatomy and performance. There was no strong basis. And that makes any mannequin far much less dependable.”
The tiniest capillaries
Wijntjes examined dozens of placentas utilizing superior imaging strategies equivalent to contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) and ultrasound localization microscopy (ULM) to achieve extra perception into the placenta’s vascular system—each on the mom’s facet and the fetus’s facet.
“We do that by injecting microscopic bubbles into a big blood vessel. Their small measurement permits them to cross into even the tiniest capillaries. This allows us to review essential particulars such because the angles between sure vessels and the ratio of vessel diameter between mom and youngster.”
All this info was used as enter to create a mathematical mannequin of the placenta. Wijntjes opens her dissertation and reveals a picture that resembles a branching tree. It nearly seems to be like mathematical artwork. “We’re one of many first teams worldwide to review the placenta this fashion.”
Hybrid mannequin
Along with simulating a wholesome placenta, Wijntjes has taken the primary steps towards replicating abnormalities within the placenta. For instance, she will be able to modify the vascular system in such a manner that it mimics the consequences of preeclampsia. How does a narrowing of the blood vessels have an effect on blood circulate within the umbilical wire, as an illustration?
“Preeclampsia is complicated. We began with the idea, and step-by-step we wish to begin increasing this mannequin to incorporate different facets.”
Nonetheless, Wijntjes emphasizes that the final word objective is to develop a hybrid mannequin.
“That manner, we are able to mix medical information and physiological insights with a mathematical mannequin. This may make the mannequin more and more real looking and dependable, permitting us to higher assess whether or not a girl is at elevated danger of problems.”
She additionally mapped the expansion of the placenta throughout being pregnant, based mostly on an intensive literature overview. She skilled that progress firsthand when she was pregnant together with her daughter midway via her Ph.D. “It was very unusual to abruptly see my analysis come to life like that.”
She chuckles. “Throughout the ultrasound check-ups, I attempted my hardest to change off my researcher’s perspective. And everybody desires to know whether or not I used my very own placenta for my analysis as properly. It was very particular to see it after the beginning, however I did select to maintain my work and personal life separate.”
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A mathematical perspective affords perception into the placenta’s function and functioning (2025, July 4)
retrieved 5 July 2025
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