3D printing technology can be used to create thousands of items ranging anywhere from houses to clocks and even clothes. They can even be used to save a baby's life by using the technology to create replicas of the human heart, according to new research.

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Because babies have such tiny hearts, children who are born with some sort of heart defect usually first undergo a quick procedure to improve the flow of blood enough until the baby doubles in size. This typically takes at least six months before doctors perform complicated surgeries.

But even babies who have grown within the time still have very small hearts that are difficult to get a complete read on when looking at MRI scans.

This led pediatric cardiologist Dr. Matthew Bramlet and his colleagues at the University of Illinois College of Medicine to take detailed MRI scans and implement it into a design for a 3D printer to successfully create exact replicas of a baby's heart.

"The heart replicas are designed to match every tiny detail of a baby's heart, so they can help surgeons plan where to cut tissue, reroute piping and patch holes in children with congenital heart defects. The new findings were presented Nov. 19 at the American Heart Association meeting in Chicago," reports LiveScience.

Straight out of the gate, the replicated 3D printed hearts helped doctors make key surgical decisions that helped saved babies' lives.

The first case, doctors looked at an MRI scan and thought the baby's heart had only one hole in the wall of its ventricles that needed to be closed. However when looking at the 3D printed heart, doctors found that the baby's heart actually had multiple "Swiss-cheese-like" holes, which led them to chance their strategy going into the procedure.

Dr. Bramlet says that they've created nine heart replicas since the first repair and has drastically increased their understanding of the babies' heart defects heading into surgery. But the doctor also mentions it's just a small sample size and that more clinical trials should be set up to research more cases. 

Tags3D Printing, Heart defects, save babies lives, children health, heart replicas, Surgery