Nature is wise and experience is essential for human survival, and perhaps that is why women’s bodies are prepared to remember previous pregnancies and that this experience helps them prevent possible risks in a future pregnancy, as a study has revealed. new study that shows that mothers’ bodies – specifically their immune system – remember previous pregnancies and that memory helps avoid complications in subsequent pregnancies.
The research has been published in Science and has been carried out by researchers at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital (USA) who have found that crosstalk, a type of biological interaction between the mother’s cells and those of her children, is much more complex and lasting than previously believed. The study used mice as models, but its authors have indicated that there is sufficient scientific evidence to demonstrate that the cellular crosstalk observed in these rodents also occurs in humans.
Scientists knew decades ago that pregnancy requires a mother to adjust her immune system so that it doesn’t attack the fetus as if it were an invading pathogen, and the new study has discovered that mothers’ bodies contain clusters of cells from their babies. –which are known as microchimeric– for months after pregnancy.
“What we can learn from the immunology of mothers and babies may open new ways to improve vaccines, autoimmunity and transplants”
Research has revealed that small groups of these types of cells can be found in the heart, intestine, uterus and other tissues. These microchimeric cells help maintain suppressor lymphocytes in the body that recognize a fetus from the same couple, which prevents the body from rejecting the new pregnancy, according to the report.
Prevent complications in high-risk pregnancies
“Nature has built a resilience into mothers that generally reduces the risk of premature pregnancies, preeclampsia and stillbirth in women who have previously had healthy pregnancies,” explained Sing Sing Way, the lead author of the research. in statements to the EFE agency. “If we could learn how to mimic these strategies we could be better equipped to prevent complications in high-risk pregnancies,” he adds.
Way states that the goal is to identify what a mother’s immune system learns from a pregnancy that has not gone well, see if it differs from those that have had no complications, and use this information to improve the treatment of problematic cases. . However, using the findings from this research to develop treatments that can be tested in clinical trials could take years.
Way has also highlighted that he hopes that the findings of this study will serve to improve vaccines, since in recent years it has been shown that vaccinating pregnant women can help protect the newborn from infectious diseases long before the baby can be vaccinated directly.
“What we can learn from the immunology of mothers and babies can open up new ways to improve vaccines, autoimmunity and transplants,” emphasizes this scientist, according to whom we are just beginning to understand “how mothers immunologically tolerate their babies during the pregnancy”.
