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A mother’s children will remain part of her long after they leave her body and enter the world. This isn’t just a saying or a metaphor; it’s biological reality. Every foetus sends some of its own cells into its mother. They cross the placenta, travel through her bloodstream, and lodge in various tissues: brain, thyroid, breast, and more. And then, they stay there. Even after the baby is born, takes its first steps, learns to speak, goes to school, gets a job, and perhaps even becomes a parent itself, some of its cells linger on in its mother.
This phenomenon is called foetal microchimerism, a name that harkens back to the monstrous lion/goat/snake hybrid of Greek mythology. But human chimeras are neither monstrous nor mythical.
People can end up with several genomes because they arose from two separate fertilised eggs that fused together. And since the 1970s, scientists have found that mothers can harbour their babies’ cells.
But what, if anything, are these cells doing?
In mice, foetal cells accumulate at wounds and injuries, and stimulate the healing process; that might explain why they’ve also been found in healed C-section scars from human mothers. In the breast, thyroid, brain, heart, and skin, they’re sometimes found more frequently in cancerous or diseased tissues, but sometimes more so in healthy, normal tissues. The balance of helpfulness and harmfulness seems to vary from study to study (and since these results are all correlations, it’s possible that the cells have no effect at all).
Read full, original post: Foetal Cells Hide Out in Mum’s Body, But What Do They Do?