title: Does placenta position modify the risk of placental abruption in car crashes?
abstract: The goal of this paper is to study the influence of placenta position on the risk of placenta abruption following a car crash involving a full term pregnant woman in the driver's seat. We developed an anatomically precise finite element numerical model of a pregnant woman. This numerical model was validated using experimental data from crash tests using cadavers given to science. For a frontal impact at a speed of 20 km/h, the mean value of peak strain levels at the utero-placenta interface were found to be close to 20%, independent of placenta position, representing an adverse foetal outcome risk of approximately 15%. This study found no significant effect of placenta position on the risk of placenta abruption. Our anatomically precise approach does however confirm the interest of using a numerical model when studying injury mechanisms in pregnant women involved in car crashes.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Biomécanique Appliquée, INRETS/Université de la Méditerranée, Marseille, France. jerome.delotte@inrets.fr
authors.forename: Jérôme
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Delotte
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Behr
authors.forename: Lionel
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Thollon
authors.forename: André
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bongain
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Brunet
mesh_terms: D000037:Abruptio Placentae / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology; D000054:Acceleration; D000063:Accidents, Traffic; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005260:Female; D005333:Fetus; D020342:Finite Element Analysis; D006801:Humans; D008953:Models, Anatomic; D008954:Models, Biological; D010920:Placenta / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D049188:Prenatal Injuries / Q000209:etiology; D012307:Risk Factors