Placenta Anatomy

Pre-eclampsia, also known as pregnancy- induced hypertension, can be life threatening to the mother and its only known treatment is an induced preterm delivery. Its causes are poorly understood, and for that reason, bioengineers at the University of Maryland, George Washington University and Children’s National Medical Center designed and printed a 3-D model of the placenta, featuring spiral arteries, and trophoblasts in a gelatin structure. Their aim was to see how the trophoblasts moved to and into the placental blood vessels (which is normal) and then try to determine why this does not happen with pre-eclampsia. MORE

Image Credit: en.wikipedia.org