Share:
Study Why are pregnant women much more susceptible to flu infections?
The female body undergoes numerous natural changes during pregnancy, which also affects the immune system. This can bring some benefits, but also significant disadvantages for women. Scientists from the Medical Faculty of the University of Hamburg and the Heinrich Pette Institute are now dedicated in a special research group to the changes in the immune system during pregnancy and their effects on mother and child.
The researchers say they want to find out "how the carefully balanced balance of immune cells and hormones activated during maternal adaptation to pregnancy is beneficial or detrimental to maternal health." They also try to "understand how a prenatal stress or drug intake can be detrimental to the unborn child and increases the risk of immune disease in the later life of these children, "said the University of Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE).
Women are more susceptible to infections during pregnancy. (Image: chatsimo / fotolia.com) Visible and invisible changes in pregnancy
During pregnancy, the body of a pregnant woman changes both visibly and invisibly, explain the physicians. Thus, the maternal immune system develops an immunological tolerance to the fetus. By specifically adapting the maternal immune system during pregnancy, rejection of the fetus is suppressed. The adaptation is based on an interaction of pregnancy hormones and immune cells and contributes to a complication-free course of pregnancy to the birth of the child.
Benefits of autoimmune diseases
By adapting the immune system during pregnancy, there are sometimes significant health benefits. For example, according to the researchers, the activity of pre-existing maternal autoimmune diseases can significantly improve. This applies, for example, to multiple sclerosis (MS). "There is currently no drug for the treatment of MS, which causes a comparable with pregnancy relief of MS symptoms," said the UKE. Here, pregnancy can also be considered as a model that contributes to an improved understanding of the causes and treatment options in autoimmunity.
Increased susceptibility to infections
On the other hand, according to the researchers, pregnant women are also affected by a significant health disadvantage, as they show a high susceptibility to infections. For example, they become much more infected with the flu virus, and infection during pregnancy can be very dangerous for the mother and the unborn child. An effect that should also be explored in the research work.
Lifelong consequences for the children
In addition, other factors during pregnancy, such as maternal stress levels and drug intake, may be detrimental to children's health later in life, the doctors report. These disadvantages are for example "a limited vaccine protection, a frequent occurrence of infections in early life or a high risk of chronic immune diseases such as allergies and asthma in the children later in life." Again, the researchers hope for the new research group insights on the impact connections.
"We expect our results to be the foundation for the discovery of new biomarkers," the researchers report. The findings may also be used to develop a "pregnancy-like" immune response to treat patients with MS and to reduce the risk of serious infections for pregnant women and their unborn children. Last but not least, guidelines are to be developed for the identification of unborn or newborn children with a high risk of developing immune diseases later in life in order to reduce their risk as early as possible, the researchers report. (Fp)