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:2017:10.1371/journal.pone.0171588,
author = {Verbruggen, SVW and Oyen, M and Phillips, A and Nowlan, NC},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0171588},
journal = {PLOS One},
title = {Function and failure of the fetal membrane: Modelling the mechanics of the chorion and amnion},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0171588},
volume = {12},
year = {2017}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - The  fetal  membrane  surrounds  the  fetus  during  pregnancy  and  is  a  thin  tissue  composed  of two layers, the chorion  and the amnion. While rupture of this membrane  normallyoccurs  at term, preterm rupture can resultin increased risk of fetal mortality and morbidity, as well as danger  of  infection  in  the  mother. Although structural  changes  have  been  observed  in  the membrane  in  such  cases,  the  mechanical  behaviour  of the  human fetal  membrane in  vivoremains  poorly  understoodand  is  challenging  to  investigate  experimentally.Therefore,the objectiveof  this  study wasto  developsimplifiedfinite  element  models  toinvestigatethe mechanical  behaviourand  ruptureof  the  fetal  membrane,  particularlyits  constituent  layers,under variousphysiological conditions.It was found that modelling the chorion and amnion as a single layer predicts remarkably different behaviourcompared with a more anatomically-accurate  bilayer,  significantly  underestimating  stress  in  the  amnion  and under-predicting  the risk  ofmembrane  rupture. Additionally,reductions  in  chorion-amnion  interface  lubrication and  chorion  thickness (reported  in  cases  of preterm  rupture)both  resultedin  increasedmembrane  stress.  Interestingly,  the  inclusion  of  a  weak  zone in  the  fetal  membrane  that  has been  observed  to  develop  overlying  the  cervix  would  likelycause it to  fail atterm,during labour.  Finally, these findings  support  the  theory  that  the  amnion  is  the  dominant  structural component of the fetal membrane and is required to maintain its integrity. The results provide a novel insight into the mechanical effect of structural changes in the chorion and amnion, in cases of bothnormal andpreterm rupture.
AU  - Verbruggen,SVW
AU  - Oyen,M
AU  - Phillips,A
AU  - Nowlan,NC
DO  - 10.1371/journal.pone.0171588
PY  - 2017///
SN  - 1932-6203
TI  - Function and failure of the fetal membrane: Modelling the mechanics of the chorion and amnion
T2  - PLOS One
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0171588
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/44238
VL  - 12
ER  -
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