Subscribe to this blog
Library Journal Reviews offers an up-to-date look at the current science findings in pregnancy.
Pincott, Jena. Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies?: The Surprising Science of Pregnancy.
What a charm! Science writer Pincott (Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes?) tackles some myths and legends associated with pregnancy and compares them to peer-reviewed research on the matter. The book covers such questions as: “Do men prefer babies who resemble them?” “What does a baby’s birth season predict?” and “Do bossy broads have more sons?” This is an enjoyable, insightful, and fascinating look at pregnancy that explains what we know and identifies what we don’t. In discussing topics from stretch marks to mama’s boys, Pincott takes a conversational tone, making the science readily available to all readers. An ideal acquisition for public libraries, a great gift for expectant parents, and the perfect choice for the doctor’s waiting room, this winning title deserves some talking up. Way more fun than What To Expect.
In her book, Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies? Jena Pincott, science writer, takes an easy-to-understand look at new discoveries about the intimate relationship between baby-in-utero and mother. Psychology Today has this to say about her.
Jena graduated with a dual major in Biology and Media Studies from Hampshire College. Seeking a happy medium, she worked on science documentaries for PBS, and then moved on to book publishing. She was an editor at John Wiley & Sons. She received an M.A. from New York University; her thesis was on science and the sublime in the works of Thomas Pynchon. Later, she became a senior editor at Random House. Then she left it all to be a science writer.
Jena writes:
Is it any solace to sentimental mothers that their babies will always be part of them?
I’m not talking about emotional bonds, which we can only hope will endure. I mean that for any woman that has ever been pregnant, some of her baby’s cells may circulate in her bloodstream for as long as she lives. Those cells often take residence in her lungs, spinal cord, skin, thyroid gland, liver, intestine, cervix, gallbladder, spleen, lymph nodes, and blood vessels. And, yes, the baby’s cells can also live a lifetime in her heart and mind.
Here’s what happens.
During pregnancy, cells sneak across the placenta in both directions. The fetus’s cells enter his mother, and the mother’s cells enter the fetus. A baby’s cells are detectable in his mother’s bloodstream as early as four weeks after conception, and a mother’s cells are detectable in her fetus by week 13. In the first trimester, one out of every fifty thousand cells in her body are from her baby-to-be (this is how some noninvasive prenatal tests check for genetic disorders). In the second and third trimesters, the count is up to one out of every thousand maternal cells. At the end of the pregnancy, up to 6 percent of the DNA in a pregnant woman’s blood plasma comes from the fetus. After birth, the mother’s fetal cell count plummets, but some stick around for the long haul. Those lingerers create their own lineages. Imagine colonies in the motherland.
Moms usually tolerate the invasion. This is why skin, organ, and bone marrow transplants between mother and child have a much higher success rate than between father and child.
Of course, we nosy mothers would like to know exactly what our children’s cells are up to while they hang out in us. Are they just biding time in our bodies? Are they mother’s little helpers? Or are they baby rebels, planning an insurgency? Read more at Jena’s blog, BOING BOING.
This is stuff for amazement! The more we learn about human biology, the more wonderful it becomes. The interactions! Who knew?!!
Here is a link to experiments done on pregnant mice showing that cells from the indwelling-babies can migrate throughout the mother mouse and actually help her to heal from a heart attack!
We are indeed wonderfully made!
See my previous post on the interaction of the male’s semen with the woman recipient.
