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15.1 - Fetal lung growth, development, and lung fluid
from Section 2 - Fetal disease
- By Richard Harding, Foula Sozo, Takushi Hanita, Cheryl Albuquerque
Edited by Mark D. Kilby, Anthony Johnson, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas, Dick Oepkes
Book:

Fetal Therapy

Published online:

05 February 2013

Print publication:

13 December 2012, pp 271-281
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Summary

This chapter focuses on how normal lung development is regulated before birth, and how it is affected by the intrauterine environment. Lung development is completed during early postnatal life; therefore, after infancy there is limited scope for repairing abnormal lung development. At least four or five distinct stages of lung development are recognized, based on microscopic appearance: these are the embryonic, pseudoglandular, canalicular, and saccular-alveolar stages. A final stage of microvascular maturation can also be recognized. For the lung to develop normally it must be able to expand to a higher degree than is seen after birth; this requires adequate intrathoracic space, fetal breathing movements (FBM), and the ongoing production of lung liquid across the airway epithelium. Changes in the environment of the developing lung that chronically affect the degree of lung expansion will result in either lung hypoplasia or hyperplasia.