**10. Conclusion**

Because there is no animal model equal to the human situation, caution should be taken to extrapolate the results to human diseases. As one animal model may have advantages in one study, it may have disadvantages in others. The careful choice of model is therefore crucial. Mice and rats are currently the most used animal models to study pregnancy, including pregnancy-related diseases like IUGR, preeclampsia and diabetic pregnancy. However, larger animal models, like the guinea pig or sheep, have advantages making them more translational to human pregnancy. Introduction of new diagnostic techniques has facilitated (non-invasive) imaging of physiological, hemodynamic and metabolic measures, even in the smallest animal models. In parallel, the increasingly better management of feeding, handling, care and anesthesia of the pregnant animals reduce physiologically stress. These factors contribute to an increasingly translatability to the human pregnancy. The use of animal models provides a way to gain insight into the improved understanding of the human pregnancy, and there are today available pregnancy-related animal models that facilitate experimental studies that cannot be made in humans.
