Imperial College London
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Dr Niamh Nowlan

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Bioengineering

Visiting Reader
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 5189n.nowlan Website

 
 
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Location

 

4.10Royal School of MinesSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Verbruggen:2015:10.1007/s10237-015-0738-1,
author = {Verbruggen, SW and Loo, JHW and Hayat, TTA and Hajnal, JV and Rutherfor, MA and Phillips, ATM and Nowlan, NC},
doi = {10.1007/s10237-015-0738-1},
journal = {Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology},
pages = {995--1004},
title = {Modeling the biomechanics of fetal movements},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10237-015-0738-1},
volume = {15},
year = {2015}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Fetal movements in the uterus are a natural part of development, and are known to play an important role in normal musculoskeletal development. However, very little is known about the biomechanical stimuli that arise during movements in utero, despite these stimuli being crucial to normal bone and joint formation. Therefore the objective of this study is to create a series of computational steps by which the forces generated during a kick in utero could be predicted from clinically observed fetal movements using novel cine-MRI data of three fetuses, aged 20-22 weeks. A custom tracking software was designed to characterise the movements of joints in utero, and average uterus deflection of 6.95 ± 0.41 mm due to kicking was calculated. These observed displacements provided boundary conditions for a finite element model of the uterine environment, predicting an average reaction force of 0.52 ± 0.15 N generated by a kick against the uterine wall. Finally, these data were applied as inputs for a musculoskeletal model of a fetal kick, resulting in predicted maximum forces in the muscles surrounding the hip joint of approximately 8 N, while higher maximum forces of approximately 21 N were predicted for the muscles surrounding the knee joint. This study provides a novel insight into the closed mechanical environment of the uterus, with an innovative method allowing elucidation of the biomechanical interaction of the developing fetus with its surroundings.
AU  - Verbruggen,SW
AU  - Loo,JHW
AU  - Hayat,TTA
AU  - Hajnal,JV
AU  - Rutherfor,MA
AU  - Phillips,ATM
AU  - Nowlan,NC
DO  - 10.1007/s10237-015-0738-1
EP  - 1004
PY  - 2015///
SN  - 1617-7959
SP  - 995
TI  - Modeling the biomechanics of fetal movements
T2  - Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10237-015-0738-1
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/26738
VL  - 15
ER  -
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