Times of India
09 December 2010
London,UK

German doctors claim to have made a medical breakthrough by capturing live MRI scan images of a baby at the moment of birth, which may provide new insights into the process of delivery and allow future lives to be saved.

The pictures were taken after a German mother agreed to give birth inside a magnetic–resonance imaging (MRI) scan machine, the Daily Mail reported.

Gynaecologist Ernst Beinder at Berlin’s Charité Hospital said the birth proceeded "normally", and the machine could film all the movements and processes that went on inside the womb. "We can now see all the details we previously could only study with probes. These images are fascinating and proved yet again that every birth is a small miracle," Beinder said.

While most MRI machines are tube–shaped, the Charité team developed a special "open" scanner which provided the necessary room for midwives and the mother during the birth. This is because the hospital doctors planned the experiment for two years before this week’s successful culmination.

In fact, to protect the participants during this week’s historic birth, the mother wore earmuffs to block out the noise while the machine was switched off when the amniotic sack surrounding the baby opened, to prevent the newborn’s hearing being affected.