Friday Fun: the first MRI of a baby being born

A recent video making the Internet rounds is the first MRI of a baby being born.

The images were shot during a normal birth at Charit?® University Hospital in Berlin, Germany, in November, 2010, researchers say in a report published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Still MRI pictures of the birth were previously published, but this is the first look at the video, made with time-lapsed images over the last 45 minutes of labor.

The MRI is of a baby boy in the final moments in utero and his mother, a 24-year-old woman with two younger children. The last moments of birth (the “money shot” if you will) are not included. Physicians shut down the MRI machine slightly before delivery because they did not want to expose the baby’s ears to the common thumping sound associated with MRIs.

Reports USA Today, “The doctors don’t say how they convinced a woman to go through the final stages of labor in an MRI machine — but do say she weathered the experience just fine.”

Citation

Bamberg C, Rademacher G, G??ttler F, Teichgr?ñber U, Cremer M, B??hrer C, Spies C, Hinkson L, Henrich W, Kalache KD, Dudenhausen JW.?áHuman birth observed in real-time open magnetic resonance imaging. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2012 Jun;206(6):505.e1-6. Epub 2012 Jan 13. PubMed PMID: 22425409.
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