• Question: Could there be a way to see the internal organs of an embryo/baby whilst it is in the mother's stomach?

    Asked by anon-197762 to Sonal, Rosanna, Matthew, Marleen, Dan, Atreya on 2 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Matthew Selwood

      Matthew Selwood answered on 2 Mar 2019:

      This is a really interesting question!

      Short answer:
      Probably, but perhaps it is not *quite* ready for general use just yet. It has been done on mice embryos, and looks really cool: https://static-movie-usa.glencoesoftware.com/webm/10.1073/580/27cdd28241c76b660c5210c293b7e2e030972da7/pnas.1802314115.sm02.webm

      Long answer:
      I know very little about biology, and even less so about embryo growth, but x-ray imaging is definitely capable of imaging objects inside of objects inside of objects – in this case, the organs inside the embryo inside of the mother. It may necessitate the injection of a dye by the embryo – potassium triiodide is one I have personally seen used – but (although I have no expertise in the field) it sounds like it should be possible.

      The dye is absorbed at different rates by different organs, so the amount of light absorbed by each will allow you to identify which organ is which, assuming you know how intense (or bright) the x-ray source is. Looking at the amount of light absorbed by each organ could also show if the organ isn’t growing evenly, if some parts absorb more or less light. You then rotate the camera around the embryo, so you can look at it from all sides, and do some fancy coding to build up a 3D image of the embryo in a technique called Tomography.

      Babies tend to wiggle around a lot, and I assume smaller embryo’s would do the same, so it would be better to use a laser to make the x-rays necessary, as the “flash” is so quick everything will look still. This has been done before with a mouse embryo, and reconstructed in a paper:
      Author: Jason Cole and others
      Title: High-resolution μCT of a mouse embryo using a compact laser-driven X-ray betatron source
      Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS)
      Year: 2018

    • Photo: Sonal Bhadane

      Sonal Bhadane answered on 4 Mar 2019:

      Ultrasound technology is a wonder. It is non-ionizing and you can image into the mother’s womb to see the baby without any risk of radiation. You can see all tiny little organs like the heart, spine, lungs, feet and hands and fingers, liver and other organs as the baby is developing.
      I was able to see my baby’s organs on the ultrasound when he was in my tummy. Although to see those organs on the ultrasound image you have to learn how to interpret those images. The images are mostly Black and white and not in 3 dimensions.

    • Photo: Marleen Wilde

      Marleen Wilde answered on 12 Mar 2019:

      I agree with Sonal, I think the most likely way to image the organs would be Ultrasound as it’s done already. I think these days it has already progressed alot, so you can nearly create a 3D image. But having a moving object, like a baby, always makes it more difficult to get accurate images.

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