Thursday, February 09, 2006

The benefits of motherhood

Greg heard this very interesting story on NPR yesterday morning. It was about fetal cells and the benefits to mothers. They have found that when ever a baby is conceived (even if the baby doesn't make it all the way to birth, because of miscarriage or whatever), cells from that growing baby get in the mother's bloodstream. They used to think that mothers' bodies would immediately fight off and kill these foreign cells, but they are now finding that they live for decades in the mother, and rather than being harmful to the mother, they think they are very beneficial and help any diseased parts of the body grow new healthy cells. It was a great story. I thought you all might want to check it out, so here is the link (click the "Listen" button to hear the radio story):
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5195551

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just listened to it. How interesting! Such a nice thought....children's cells helping their mother fight disease. Hmmmm.....

Basin Ebberts said...

very interesting, thanks Tammy