Cutting-Edge Research and Innovative Treatments

Our team aims to drive improvements in maternal and fetal outcomes and to develop therapies for generations to come. We have a deep passion for exploring diverse and complex conditions that have lifelong implications for both maternal and fetal health.

Placental Pharmacogenetics and Substance Use Disorders in Pregnancy

• Our team aims to understand the role of placental efflux transporters in fetal opioid exposure.

Working to Improve Obstetric Safety

• Alongside national and state partners, and using innovative technologies, we are leading efforts to improve maternal safety, build perinatal collaboratives, and reduce healthcare disparities.

Consequences of Long-Term Hospitalization for Complex Antepartum Patients

• We are studying obstetric and neonatal outcomes as well as patient satisfaction in the population of women admitted for extended antepartum stays.

• Our team is focused on creating novel strategies to enhance support offered to this population.

Fetal Hemoglobin Project

• Pioneering strategies to support healthy oxygen delivery in newborns of extremely low gestational age or newborns requiring postnatal surgery.

Artificial Placenta

• NIH-funded researchers are working to improve sur vival rates in the tiniest, most premature babies in a groundbreaking way. Our innovative artificial placenta mimics the intrauterine environment, providing gas exchange without mechanical ventilation.

• Recreating the intrauterine environment will allow critical organ development outside of the uterus. Next steps will be to determine if milestones justify preliminary clinical trials in extremely premature babies.

Novel Alternatives to Stapled Hysterotomy in Open Fetal Surgery

• For the past few years, our team has been investigating novel techniques to enter the uterus for open fetal surgery.

• Our animal studies are showing that use of the Harmonic ACE+7 to create a hemostatic hysterotomy is safe. Additionally, healing is similar to traditional stapling.

Fetal Endoscopic Tracheal Occlusion (FETO) for Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH)

• Fetal Endoscopic Tracheal Occlusion (FETO) is offered at Michigan Medicine.

• This experimental therapy is offered for fetuses with severe pulmonary hypoplasia with liver in the thoracic cavity due to congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), including right- or left-sided defects.

Connecting with Networks Across North America to Enable More Discovery and Improve Patient Care

• We are active members and participants in the North American Fetal Therapy Network (NAFTNet), a multicenter network of 36 medical centers in the United States and Canada that perform advanced in-utero fetal therapeutic procedures.

• We are actively involved in collaborative research projects, registries, and publications with NAFTNet, including complicated monochorionic twin gestations, open myelomeningocele repair registry, mode of delivery for fetuses with myelomeningoceles, and sleep-disordered breathing in neonates with myelomeningocele.