---
title: "Millions of Premature Babies Have Been Saved, Thanks to Physics"
description: "Popular YouTube channel MinuteEarth teams up with the Gates Foundation to deliver a video on the scientific undertaking that helped premature babies."
date: "2017-05-06"
modified: "2017-05-06"
authors:
  - name: "Kelsey R. Marquart"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kelsey"
url: "https://futurism.com/millions-premature-babies-saved-thanks-physics"
categories:
  - "Physics"
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "physics"
  - "premature babies"
---

# Millions of Premature Babies Have Been Saved, Thanks to Physics

![premature babies physics youtube minutephysics](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-545843560.jpg>)
*NICU baby is seen in his isolette with eye protection on and is touched by parents \<em\>Image: \<a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/545843560" target="\_blank"\>Jill Lehmann/Getty\</a\>\</em\>*

With all the fanfare surrounding [fluid-filled bags that made it possible](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/4-artificial-womb-could-revolutionize-treatment-for-premature-children>) to bring premature lambs to healthy development in the hopes of tackling premature birth in infants, it's important to note how the medical community first tackled premature birth with a little physics.

Preemies, or premature infants, have [a host of potential birth defects](<http://www.marchofdimes.org/complications/long-term-health-effects-of-premature-birth.aspx>), including delays in physical development, learning, and communication as well as defects involving a child's lungs causing problems like asthma, [Bronchopulmonary dysplasia](<http://www.marchofdimes.org/complications/common-conditions-treated-in-the-nicu.aspx>), and other chronic conditions.

A video from popular YouTube channel MinuteEarth discusses how a mathematical study left an impressive impact on the medical community, changing how we can make a difference for prematurely born infants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJQlgrlB29M

The video takes a look at the Law of Laplace and its role in the human body. Similar to the air pressure in two connected balloons, alveoli, miniature air-sacs in our lungs that exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen, have trouble maintaining an air pressure equilibrium for premature children with [Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS)](<https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/rds>).

By understanding the physics behind this complication, CPAP machines have saved over two million lives worldwide — a dramatic shift since the 1970s, when 3 in 4 premature babies with RDS would pass away due to complications.