New Technology Allows Parents to Hold Life-Size Model of Their Unborn Child

Paxil and Pregnancy (possible adverse effect link)

Unborn Child's Memory Develops by 30 Weeks in the Womb: New Research...

New Technology Allows Parents to Hold Life-Size Model of Their Unborn Child
Stunning new technology is allowing parents to go beyond a 3D or 4D ultrasound to bond with their unborn child in ways never imaginable. A student at the Royal College of Art in Britain has created life-like models based on pictures of unborn children that are the exact shape and size of the baby in the womb.

Fetal models have long been a staple of county fairs and health education classes across the country, but one student has gone further.

Brazilian student Jorge Lopes is a PhD. student at the college and he has pioneered the use of converting data from ultrasounds and MRI scans to form life-size plastic models in a process called rapid prototyping.

"It’s amazing to see the faces of the mothers. They can see the full scale of their baby, really understand the size of it," Lopes told the London Daily Mail newspaper.

One way to conceive of the idea behind the new process is to imagine a printer that relies on plastic powder instead of the ink that normally goes on a sheet of paper. As the plastic build up, it creates a 3D model instead of a flat image on paper.

Aine Duffy from the RCA added, "It's stunning technology - here at the RCA we use it for everything from new medical devices, to car components, to jewelry, to architectural models."

Lopes' work is slated to appear at an exhibition opening in London today.

The process is drawing positive comments from Dr. Staurt Campbell, who pioneered ultrasound imaging in Britain in the 1980s.

"I don't know whether I am looking at science or I am looking at art," he said, calling the process "absolutely unique" and "a fantastic development."
 [June 29, 2009, London, England, www.LifeNews.com, http://www.lifenews.com/int1249.html ]

Warning: Paxil and Pregnancy (possible link)
Side effects for paxil babies include, but are not limited to:

Congential Heart Defects
Lung Birth Defects
Craniosynostosis
Abdominal Birth Defects
Tetralogy of Fallot
Heart Birth Defects
other birth defects while the child was exposed to paxil
Facts:
Paxil, which has the chemical name is paroxetine, is a widely prescribed antidepressant that has been used by millions of women for the treatment of general depression and anxiety disorders. After a series of studies were published showing that Paxil increased the risks of the development of congenital heart defects among newborns who were exposed during pregnancy, the FDA reclassified Paxil as a Pregnancy Category "D" drug.
Category "D" is used when "there is positive evidence of human fetal risk".

No other SSRI or antidepressant in the same class carries such a warning.





Unborn Child's Memory Develops by 30 Weeks in the Womb: New Research
30-week-old babies in the womb already have short-term memory capabilities, a new study from the Netherlands, published in the July/August 2009 issue of the journal Child Development, has found.

Researchers at Maastricht University Medical Centre and the University Medical Centre St. Radboud examined 93 healthy pregnant Dutch women and their unborn children, measuring changes in how the child responds to repeated stimulation. The children were tested at 30, 32, 34, and 36 weeks, and again at 38 weeks gestation. 

The study showed that the unborn children would initially respond to a "vibroacoustic" stimulus. The stimulus would then be repeated every 30 seconds until "habituation" occured, and the children no longer reacted, evidently accepting the sound as safe. Ultrasonography showed that in a second session ten minutes after the first, the children apparently "remembered" the stimulus and the number of stimuli needed for habituation grew much smaller.

The scientists found that at thirty weeks, the child in the womb has a short-term memory of about ten minutes. At 34 weeks, the child can store information and retrieve it up to four weeks later. The younger children who had been tested at 34 and 36 weeks were later able to habituate much faster than children at 38 weeks who had never been tested.
 
"This is the next step into a better insight in the development of the foetal central nervous system," said study co-author Dr. Jan G. Nijhuis, director of the Centre for Genetics, Reproduction and Child Health at Maastricht University Medical Centre in the Netherlands. "We aim to develop an 'intra-uterine neurologic examination,' which could then be used in foetuses at risk."
[16July2009, Hilary White, www.LifeSiteNews.com]