Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Thessaly, Larissa, Greece.
Research in Childbirth and Health Unit, School of Community Health and Midwifery, Faculty of Health and Wellbeing, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2020 Jul 28;15(7):e0231997. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231997. eCollection 2020.
Human fetal thermoregulation, maternal-fetal heat exchange, and the role of the umbilical cord in these processes are not well understood. Ethical and technical limitations have restricted current knowledge to animal studies, that do not reflect human morphology. Here, we present the first 3-dimensional computational model of the human umbilical cord with finite element analysis, aiming to compute the maternal-fetal heat exchange. By modelling both the umbilical vein and the two umbilical arteries, we found that the coiled geometry of the umbilical artery, in comparison with the primarily straight umbilical vein, affects blood flow parameters such as velocity, pressure, temperature, shear strain rate and static entropy. Specifically, by enhancing the heat transfer coefficient, we have shown that the helical structure of the umbilical arteries plays a vital role in the temperature drop of the blood, along the arterial length from the fetal end to the placental end. This suggests the importance of the umbilical cord structure in maternal-fetal heat exchange and fetal heat loss, opening the way for future research with modified models and scenarios, as the basis for early detection of potential heat-transfer related complications, and/or assurance of fetal wellbeing.
人类胎儿的体温调节、母婴热交换以及脐带在这些过程中的作用尚未得到很好的理解。伦理和技术限制使得当前的知识仅限于动物研究，而这些研究并不能反映人类的形态。在这里，我们首次提出了一种具有有限元分析的三维人类脐带计算模型，旨在计算母婴热交换。通过对脐静脉和两条脐动脉进行建模，我们发现与主要呈直线的脐静脉相比，脐动脉的螺旋几何形状会影响血流参数，如速度、压力、温度、剪切应变率和静态熵。具体来说，通过提高传热系数，我们表明脐动脉的螺旋结构在胎儿端到胎盘端沿动脉长度的血液降温中起着至关重要的作用。这表明脐带结构在母婴热交换和胎儿散热中的重要性，为未来的研究提供了依据，以便通过改进模型和场景进行早期检测潜在的传热相关并发症，并/或确保胎儿的健康。
