Does the Probe Velocity Affect the Mechanical Behavior of Human Chorioamnion in Biaxial Puncture Test?

Human fetal membrane or chorioamnion (CA) is a soft biological tissue which contains fetus and amniotic fluid during pregnancy. The complex process of tissue growth during pregnancy is not fully known yet. Premature rupture of fetal membrane (PROM) is one of most important reasons of infant mortality and defects before birth. It was hypothesized that as other viscoelastic biological tissues, increasing the strain rate could stiffen the CA membrane. There is no study that specifically has evaluated the effect of displacement rate on CA mechanical properties; therefore, the effect of probe velocity on mechanical properties of human fetal membrane has been investigated for the first time. Puncture force and stress of CA have been obtained in three different probe speeds of 1, 10 and 100 mm/sec, and the data were analyzed with a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Statistical analysis of results has been demonstrated that the puncture force data was not significantly different in mentioned probe velocities.