This 30-second video shows the gradual birth of a newborn baby from the birth canal of a 24-year-old mother (who agreed to participate in the study) who spent 45 minutes in the second stage of labor, also known as the “pushing stage,” under the MRI machine. The video shows each uterine contraction that exerts pressure on the baby, pushing it down into the birth canal. When the uterus relaxes after the contraction, the baby’s head will retract slightly. The health care provider must stop the MRI recording when the baby is about to be born, thus ensuring that the newborn baby is not exposed to MRI noise. The video provides valuable information about the birth process, allowing scientists to study the details of a baby’s birth through the detector alone. This will help explain why 15 percent of women need to have a cesarean section, which is because their babies cannot fully enter the birth canal. While most MRI machines are tube-like, the research team at Berlin’s Charité Hospital designed a special “open-ended” scanner that provided the necessary space for the midwife during the delivery of this German woman on Nov. 20, 2010. According to gynecologist Ernst Bernd, the delivery was normal and the MRI showed the baby’s birth from inside the body. They were able to use the MRI to monitor the baby’s heartbeat. According to the British journal New Scientist, this technology was recently used by doctors at Imperial College London to study unborn twins. The researchers are investigating and analyzing blood transfusion complication syndrome between twins, a condition in which typically one baby receives more blood while the other receives less. Using powerful magnetic materials, the MRI creates a stronger magnetic field that is able to detect some atoms in the body through radio waves. The use of MRI provides a detailed picture of the soft tissue and bone structure of the body. MRI scans are considered a safer diagnostic option than X-rays, but some patients resent them because of the humming noise that occurs when the MRI processes the images. During this delivery, the mother wore ear muffs to block the noise for safety reasons, and when the baby was born with ruptured amniotic membranes, the staff turned off the MRI so that the newborn’s hearing would not be affected.