Most people rarely think about the placenta beyond pregnancy. Once a baby is born, the organ that sustained fetal development is usually discarded. But for Shannon Bainbridge, a professor in the University of Ottawa Faculty of Health Sciences and director of the Placenta Lab, it might be one of the most revealing organs in the human body. It could offer clues to the lifelong health of both mother and child.
“I would actually argue that it’s the most important organ that you’ve ever owned and then ultimately thrown away.” Bainbridge says.
The placenta does more than sustain a developing baby. It preserves evidence of the environment a pregnancy unfolded in and how that environment might shape the mother’s and child’s future health.
“As we scratch the surface, we realize that there’s even more information captured within this organ that we really don’t know anything about.”
Shannon Bainbridge-Whiteside
— Professor, Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences
Reading the signs of future health
Among the most promising areas of Bainbridge’s research is pre-eclampsia, a high blood pressure disorder in pregnancy that can have consequences long after delivery.
Over the past 15 years, her work has focused on understanding why women who experience pre-eclampsia face a high risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke later in life. Examining the placenta could help researchers identify those at greatest risk, creating an opportunity to act before cardiovascular disease develops.
The implications extend beyond identifying risk. Bainbridge’s research suggests that women can develop pre-eclampsia for different underlying reasons. Understanding those different reasons could help explain why a single treatment might not work equally well for everyone.
“We have no treatment for pre-eclampsia whatsoever that’s highly effective,” she says.
By investigating the biological processes underlying the condition, her team hopes to distinguish different forms of the disease and move towards more personalized approaches to care.
The opportunity to act earlier is particularly important because many of these women are still young. In Ottawa, information gathered after a pre-eclampsia case in pregnancy can help identify women who could benefit from referrals to services such as the University of Ottawa Heart Institute for more intensive prevention.
The placenta can also offer clues to a child’s future health. Bainbridge’s research into prenatal substance exposure has shown how exposure can damage the placenta and compromise fetal development. Her team has observed links to poor growth after birth and neurodevelopmental difficulties, including those associated with ADHD and autism.
That means the same organ that sustains pregnancy might help researchers understand mothers’ and children’s health outcomes long after delivery.
An unexpected record of environmental exposure
Bainbridge’s work is also examining what the placenta can reveal about the environment we live in. Working with Health Canada, her team has identified microplastics in every human placenta it has examined in its Canadian research. These tiny particles form as plastics break down. Their presence in the placenta raises important questions about the effects of environmental contaminants on pregnancy.
The particles her team has characterized appear to include breakdown products of familiar everyday items, such as water bottles, plastic bags, utensils and takeout containers.
“We don’t actually know if that’s actually harmful or not,” Bainbridge says.
Her research investigates whether types of plastic affect the placenta’s ability to support a healthy pregnancy, whether particles reach the developing baby and what any resulting effects might mean for health later in life.
The answers could eventually identify which exposures pose the greatest risks and inform policies to reduce them, particularly for vulnerable groups such as pregnant women.
Finding clues with a new tool
Another emerging tool, artificial intelligence, could help researchers uncover information that has so far remained beyond their reach. A placenta contains an extraordinary number of microscopic features. Some might be meaningful indicators of disease. AI could analyze these features at a scale that would be difficult to achieve through conventional examination alone. By identifying patterns, the technology could help clinicians better predict which women are at risk of complications in another pregnancy, or which mothers and babies might face health challenges later in life.
The goal is not to replace clinical expertise. It’s to give health-care professionals more information for making decisions.
“It's never going to replace a doctor, but it’s a tool that’s going to arm doctors with a lot more information from the placenta that can help guide immediate and future care,” Bainbridge says.
The placenta is temporary, but the biological story it carries could extend across decades. Although most people never think about it again after birth, it might be one of the most revealing records of where lifelong health begins. By learning to read that record more closely, researchers hope to better understand pregnancy complications, anticipate future health risks and identify opportunities for earlier, more personalized care.