Health Update: Choking solution

A FIBRE-optic probe that can be inserted into the womb just before birth could save the lives of more than 1,000 babies who die each year of meconium suffocation. Most babies expel meconium, a mixture of bile and mucus, from the bowels immediately after being born, but in one in 10 births this happens before delivery. If the meconium enters the baby's lungs it can prevent it from breathing.

The probe, developed at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, is passed through the vagina into the womb and can detect whether a baby has passed meconium during labour, says a report in New Scientist.