Monday, November 08, 2004
Good for baby, good for mum
It appears that having babies is good for mum in a way that was not previously understood. The magazine New Scientist reports:
"It has been known for about a decade that cells from a human fetus can remain in its mother’s blood and bone marrow for many years. But what do they do? Diana Bianchi at the Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston and her colleagues recently showed that these fetal cells can transform themselves into specialised cells in the thyroid, intestine, cervix and gall bladder. Now her team has shown that, in mice at least, these fetal cells also help heal skin wounds in the mother, both during and after pregnancy."
It appears that having babies is good for mum in a way that was not previously understood. The magazine New Scientist reports:
"It has been known for about a decade that cells from a human fetus can remain in its mother’s blood and bone marrow for many years. But what do they do? Diana Bianchi at the Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston and her colleagues recently showed that these fetal cells can transform themselves into specialised cells in the thyroid, intestine, cervix and gall bladder. Now her team has shown that, in mice at least, these fetal cells also help heal skin wounds in the mother, both during and after pregnancy."
