Every year, ~500,000 babies are born extremely preterm (<28 weeks of age) worldwide. These infants are usually transferred to an air-based neonatal intensive care unit to support their heart and lung development. Exposure to air, however, leads to many complications, because the lungs are not fully developed yet. The perinatal life support (PLS) project aims to develop a novel, alternative environment, more similar to the mother’s womb. In this PLS system, extremely premature babies would be transferred to an environment where the lungs remain filled with fluid and the umbilical cord will be attached to an artificial placenta to improve their organ development and ease the transition to newborn life. This project aims to increase the chances of survival for extremely premature babies and not to change the viability threshold.

Read more about the project here

In this section you will find information about the background and approach of the PLS. project

In this section you will find relevant information for the consortium partners, such as link, resources, and meetings.

In this section you will find relevant information for families.

Latest News

First time right: development of a new generation of incubators using simulations

Extreme preterm birth Clinical relevance Annually, 15 million children worldwide are born prematurely. In addition to short-term complications, such as respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), necrotic enterocolitis (NEC) and intraventricular haemorrhage (IVH), there are also long-term complications, such as neurocognitive developmental disorders [4]. PLS Technology To improve the life expectancy and quality of

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Artificial Placenta Mini Symposium

Last month the Artificial Placenta Mini Symposium took place! PLS members met for the first time to look at the development of an artificial placenta from different perspectives. A big thank you to Mike Seed, Christoph Haller, and Janna Morrison. Till next time!   Mike Seed:  Division Head, Cardiology, Cardiac Radiologist, Associate Professor of Paediatrics University of

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The Advocate and Scientific Advisory Board met to discuss progress on developing fetal mannikins 

The Advocate and Scientific Advisory Board met to discuss progress on developing fetal mannikins After a longer break, the Advocate Advisory Board and Scientific Advisory Board of the PLS project met on May 13th. Several ‘experience experts’ are represented in the ‘Advocate Advisory Board, and scientific experts in the Scientific Advisory Board. Due to logistical

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PLS researchers received valuable feedback from obstetricians on consortium’s first concept of the Perinatal Life Support (PLS) System

PLS researchers received valuable feedback from obstetricians on consortium’s first concept of the Perinatal Life Support (PLS) System The first prototype concepts of the PLS system are here! In March of 2022 a workshop was held to gather feedback from 9 obstetricians on the first concepts for a prototype of the PLS system. During this

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PLS researchers featured on Dutch television

PLS researchers featured on Dutch television In December 2021, PLS researchers Jasmijn and Lyla were invited to a Dutch talkshow which did a feature episode on life in the future.  Scheefgroei is a Dutch television series of talk shows, broadcast by BNNVARA starting in 2021. It is presented by Jeroen Pauw, with contributions from investigative

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Third annual PLS consortium meeting

Third annual PLS consortium meeting PLS Consortium MeetingPLS Consortium Meeting Previous Next On the 4th and 5th of October, the third consortium meeting of the international project “Perinatal Life Support (PLS)” was held in Aken, Germany. The PLS Advocate Advisory Board (AAB) and the PLS Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) were also present. The AAB got

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HORIZON 2020

This project is funded by Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union under grant agreement number 863087.

Perinatal Life Support

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