Skip to main content

Forget ultrasound photos – now you can get a 3D model of your unborn baby to show friends

Before modern technology changed everything, all we had to look at when a loved one was pregnant was a bulging belly, steadily increasing in size as the months ticked by. Then along came ultrasound technology, giving proud parents-to-be the opportunity to show off fuzzy pictures of their child while still inside the mother.

Ultrasound videos soon followed, with some unborn babies becoming YouTube stars before they’d even taken their first breath.

But things have moved on again. Indeed, the latest advancement in fetal imaging technology will either excite you, make you feel a little queasy or simply freak you out.

Japanese engineering firm Fasotec and Tokyo-based Parkside Hiroo Ladies Clinic have just launched a service that will give pregnant women a 3D model of their unborn child inside their uterus (yes, the uterus forms part of the model).

DigiInfo TV reported that it is the first service of its kind in the world.

An employee at the clinic said it trialed the service with three expectant mothers, all of whom said how wonderful it was to see how their little one looked prior to being born.

“They also enjoyed looking at the model after giving birth, thinking, ‘This is how my baby looked inside me’ and recalling how it felt to be pregnant,” the employee said.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

So how do they create this 3D fetus? Well, according to DigiInfo TV, it’s made using a technology called BioTexture, which carries out 3D processing of image data, in this case taken from an MRI scan.

A 3D printer then constructs the model, spraying two resins at the same time – “transparent for the mother’s body and white for the baby.”

The service, which the clinic recommends the expectant mother uses as late into her pregnancy as possible so that a more detailed model can be made, starts at 100,000 yen ($1,270), though this doesn’t include the cost of imaging. The clinic is planning to expand its service by offering a wider range of model shapes and sizes.

If you’re a parent-to-be, do you like the idea of presenting friends with a 3D model of your unborn baby, or would you prefer to stick with an old-fashioned ultrasound pic?

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
3D-printed ventilator valves help out Italian hospital rocked by coronavirus
3d printed ventilator valves img 20200314 223845

What do you do when a crucial part of a lifesaving piece of medical equipment is in hopelessly short supply? You 3D print yourself a supply of them, of course. At least, that’s what happened at a hospital in Brescia, Italy, rocked by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

While ventilator breathing machines are not exactly in abundant supply, medical professionals found that the valves connecting the machine to the patient were even scarcer. This is due to the fact that they have to be regularly swapped out between patients, giving the component a very short life span.

Read more
3D-printing technique produces tiny, highly detailed objects in seconds
The new fast 3D printing technique developed by researchers at EPFL.

The new fast 3D printing technique developed by researchers at EPFL. Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

3D printing has incredible potential for both research and home uses, but it has some limitations. The current technology takes some time to produce an object, and it produces hard structures only. But now, researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) have come up with a method for printing highly-precise miniature objects with different textures.

Read more
This 3D-printed four-legged robot is ready to take on Spot — at a lower price
3d printed ghost robotics origin

New Spirit 40: First Steps & Quick Run

Most people reading this will be familiar with four-legged robots such as the dog-inspired Spot robot developed by Boston Dynamics or Swiss robotics company ANYbotics’ ANYmal. But while there’s no doubt that such robots are supremely impressive, they’re also expensive -- which could limit their application in certain domains.

Read more