Whilst we generally hear of the story of how getting pregnant was hard, but staying pregnant was easy, this story is less frequently told, but occurs with approximately 15% of all pregnancies (Serrano and Lima 2006). “At 29 I discovered that, for me, getting pregnant was easy, but staying pregnant was difficult. It took three miscarriages before I finally fell pregnant and stayed that way, eventually leading to my first successful pregnancy at age 34.”
It is stories like these that make us wonder what actually occurs during pregnancy to allow acceptance of foreign antigens. To answer this question I will look into the reproductive immunology, and how a single sperm can evade the immune systems defensive mechanisms, fertilise an egg, and then form an embryo which in itself is also able to evade the maternal immune system to develop into the new-born baby that a family cherishes.
To take you on this journey, we will start at the very beginning. During sexual intercourse, semen depositions in the vagina result in an influx of immune cells known as neutrophils, macrophages and T cells (Suarez and Pacey 2006). These immune responses are normal responses, present in the vaginal immune system to prevent from other …show more content…
2004). Pre-eclampsia affects approximately 2.5% of women globally in the last three months of pregnancy (Harmon, Huang et al. 2015). The causes of pre-eclampsia are often due to inadequate development and attachment of the placenta to the uterus, which, as previously described, is a fundamental part for the ‘switching off’ of certain immune functions. Many women also have “unexplained infertility” with IVF and implantation of an embryo due to the fact that they have elevated levels of a pro-inflammatory molecule known as TNF-α which is also present in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid
It is stories like these that make us wonder what actually occurs during pregnancy to allow acceptance of foreign antigens. To answer this question I will look into the reproductive immunology, and how a single sperm can evade the immune systems defensive mechanisms, fertilise an egg, and then form an embryo which in itself is also able to evade the maternal immune system to develop into the new-born baby that a family cherishes.
To take you on this journey, we will start at the very beginning. During sexual intercourse, semen depositions in the vagina result in an influx of immune cells known as neutrophils, macrophages and T cells (Suarez and Pacey 2006). These immune responses are normal responses, present in the vaginal immune system to prevent from other …show more content…
2004). Pre-eclampsia affects approximately 2.5% of women globally in the last three months of pregnancy (Harmon, Huang et al. 2015). The causes of pre-eclampsia are often due to inadequate development and attachment of the placenta to the uterus, which, as previously described, is a fundamental part for the ‘switching off’ of certain immune functions. Many women also have “unexplained infertility” with IVF and implantation of an embryo due to the fact that they have elevated levels of a pro-inflammatory molecule known as TNF-α which is also present in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid