Some documentaries help us get an idea of how babies live for nine months inside the womb, but uterine life is still a mystery in many ways. Imagine getting a camera to spy on what happens in there for a few minutes.
This is what has happened at St. George's Hospital in London, where a camera was introduced into the womb to perform fetal surgery. The intervention was recorded and thanks to that we can all enjoy something that is not seen every day: the incredible images of twins of 22 weeks of gestation inside the womb.
Twin to twin transfusion syndrome
Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS), or fetal syndrome, is a condition that affects up to 15 percent of identical twin pregnancies.
It occurs only in pregnancies of identical twins, since when sharing the same placenta, in some cases there is an imbalance in blood flow and one of them becomes a donor of the other.
If this happens, the mortality rate is very high, between 80 and 100%. Thanks to fetoscopy, surgery to the fetus while still in the womb the situation is reversed and the survival rate is 75 to 90%.
After the operation, the family had to wait six hours to find out if the babies still had a heartbeat, but fortunately everything went well and the two babies were born healthy.
Real images inside the womb
The micro camera "travels" inside the uterus to show us spectacular images of babies with 22 weeks gestation. At this point in pregnancy, (20 weeks from conception) the baby measures approximately 27 centimeters and weighs almost 500 grams.
You can see that they practically look like a full-term baby, but they still need to gain weight and continue training. Let us think that there are extreme premature babies born from this week and have managed to survive.
Your body fat represents just 1% of your body, but from now on you will gain layers of fat, which will help you regulate your body temperature. If we look at the images you can see that the skin is practically translucent, you can see the veins perfectly through it.
You can also perceive your eyelids, nails and eyebrows, although the latter still have no color, they are white fluffs that are seen above the eyes.
