Pregnancy News: Faithfulness & Fertility
November 13, 2009 by Peggy Rowland
Filed under Women's Health
Faithful moms have healthier children! That’s what researchers at the University of Auckland found after studying 2,507 first-time pregnant women in New Zealand. Their findings were published in the Journal of Reproductive Immunology.
Pre-eclampsia, hypertension induced by pregnancy, was less common in women who had long-term sexual relations exclusively with the biological father. The comparison was made with women who had been with their partner only for less than six months. Women who had babies that were small for gestational age were also more likely to have been in shorter relationships.
Faculty of 1000 reviewer Dr. Larry Chamley commented that prolonged exposure of a woman’s immune system to semen after intercourse might create tolerance of the maternal immune system to the paternal antigens. Pre-eclampsia may be due to a failure of the maternal immune system to tolerate those same paternal antigens.
“Although the issue of whether prolonged semen exposure does protect against developing pre-eclampsia is not yet resolved, this paper seems to tip the weight of evidence back in favor of suggesting that prolonged semen exposure is protective,” said Chamley.
In other pregnancy news
Fertility preservation procedures performed on young (under 40) breast cancer patients don’t cause a significant delay in breast cancer treatment if care is coordinated in a timely manner. Young breast cancer patients who undergo surgical or chemotherapeutic treatments may face premature menopause. Some patients may choose cryopreservation of eggs or fertilized oocytes to maintain the option of having biological children later.
In their study, the research team at Stanford University School of Medicine found that the median time from initial diagnosis of breast cancer to chemotherapy treatment in women who underwent fertility preservation was 71 days versus 67 days among those who did not. The researchers believe that fertility preservation may promote emotional well-being in breast cancer patients and, if coordinated properly, doesn’t delay cancer treatment. The study was published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
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