Did you know that some of a baby’s cells stay in their mother’s body for fifty years or more? This is true even if the pregnancy was brief, for every conception makes its mark! I would think that other mothers who have lost a baby at any stage would, like me, find this to be comforting. During pregnancy, cells from the mother and baby cross the placenta. Our babies have some of our cells in them, and we have some of their cells in us. These fetal cells can become part of our blood, or they can become heart muscle cells, or even turn into brain neurons. Sometimes these cells may even heal damaged tissue within our body.
A woman went to a hospital with symptoms of hepatitis. She
had had five pregnancies: one live birth, two miscarriages, and two abortions. After
a biopsy on her liver, her medical team discovered hundreds of fetal cells. These
cells had migrated to the diseased part of her liver and changed into healthy
tissue, thereby repairing her liver! Further testing revealed that the cells were
from a baby that had been aborted twenty years earlier.
