Fast as lightning
Days until birth: 119
Waist size: 86.5 centimetres (34 inches)
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In a fluid bubble within softly padded walls, the little fetus scratches her chest. Taking a run-up, she repeatedly launches herself at the uterine wall, a juvenile Jackie Chan practising her gravity-defying moves.
Looking at the video later, it looks like my womb boxer is really giving it some. Encased in the narrow beige tunnel of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, however, I felt only a single soft thud, like a kernel of corn popping in my belly.
This is the cutting edge of fetal imaging. Researchers from Imperial College London are using MRI to take multiple high-resolution snapshots of fetuses and their brains and then stitch them together using software into cinematic sequences, providing a unique insight into life inside the uterus (see video, above).
Behaviour before birth
MRI is expensive, so for the past 15 years or so has been used only sparingly on fetuses. The National 午夜福利1000集合 Service in the UK generally offers a scan to women only if conventional ultrasound screening picks up abnormalities in the proportions of the skull or other body parts.
But at Imperial鈥檚 Hammersmith Hospital campus they鈥檙e now taking things a step further, using advanced MRI imaging to systematically scan the brains of both healthy and seemingly abnormal fetuses, which will then be followed through birth and the early years of development in order to see whether subtle alterations in the structure of the brain are borne out in actual behavioural differences.
That鈥檚 where I come in. As the expectant mother of an apparently healthy (if boisterous) fetus, we are providing control data for these studies.
If differences detected in the scans turn out to be significant after birth, fetal MRI could provide a more accurate means of screening for behavioural problems and providing parents with counselling or medical interventions in extreme cases.
Fetal film star
However, such imaging is also providing a unique opportunity for studying complex fetal movements in situ. 鈥淲ith ultrasound you have a relatively limited view, and beyond 32 weeks you can only really see parts of the body moving,鈥� says Imperial鈥檚 , who is leading the research.
MRI enables sharp images of the entire body to be recorded 鈥� critical if fetal movements from different stages of development are to be compared with one another, which is what Rutherford鈥檚 team is trying to achieve. 鈥淲e鈥檙e interested in how the fetus moves, how this changes during gestation and whether there鈥檚 a difference between normal fetuses and those that aren鈥檛 developing properly,鈥� she says.
The scans are already throwing up some surprises. For one thing, the types of movements that a 20-week-old fetus and a fully grown 40-week-old perform don鈥檛 seem to vary that much, suggesting that fetal movements are the result of fairly primitive brain processes, says Rutherford.
鈥淧eople had thought that as gestation developed, babies鈥� movements would become more complex as a sign of higher brain activity, but that doesn鈥檛 seem to be the case,鈥� she says.
Precocious offspring
Fetuses also seem capable of movements that they seem unable to perform at birth or in the early months of life, such as making a pincer between their forefinger and thumb, or clutching at their feet. 鈥淧erhaps it鈥檚 a product of their environment,鈥� says Rutherford. Surrounded by fluid, the effects of gravity are reduced, meaning that reaching forward and grasping your feet is simply less effort, she suggests.
Looking at the footage of my fetus scratching her chin, tapping her foot and apparently bursting to get out, it鈥檚 difficult not to anthropomorphise and attach more weight to her actions than is perhaps wise at this stage. At 23 weeks, the cortex 鈥� the area of the brain associated with higher mental functions 鈥� is still in the early stages of development, and has yet to acquire the characteristic folds associated with a mature brain.
Exactly when consciousness begins is a subject I hope to tackle in next week鈥檚 Bumpology. But even though my fetus is just a snippet of the fully formed human she will (hopefully) become for now, I feel privileged to have been afforded a glimpse into her inner world, and I feel closer to her as a result.
Read previous Bumpology columns: Can old wives鈥� tales tell me my baby鈥檚 sex?, Active fetus, boisterous child? Uh-oh, Why do I loathe lettuce?, How does stress affect my fetus?
