Things that can kill you, pt. 1

Lets talk about babies, shall we?

Specifically a couple of fascinating (to me anyway, and since I'm the only one currently reading this blog I may as well amuse myself) tidbits found in my immunology notes regarding immune response to babies.

Now your immune system is kind of a scary thing to begin with. Imagine if you will a small army of well trained, endlessly paranoid, constantly vigilant militia groups hanging around in your body just waiting for somebody to look at them funny. This is essentially what your immune system is, and they're not exactly the brightest bunch either. It's difficult not to anthropomorphize one's immune system when the vast majority of immunology lectures would work almost perfectly as a zombie metaphor. But that's a post for another day.

Now when you (or somebody else) gets pregnant, the body has to do something to keep that paranoid little militia from going into attack mode against what is essentially a parasite hanging out in your womb for however many months. So your immune system gets put into lockdown for a while. Fun fact, around 70% of mothers with rheumatoid arthritis (which is an autoimmune disease attacking their joints) have lessened symptoms while they're pregnant. So if you're suffering from certain autoimmune diseases, get pregnant a lot I guess.



Well that's the first interesting thing, now for one of those things that makes you amazed you managed to survive. Neonatal Isoerythrolysis, which is a nicely clinical way of saying that your immune system is killing your baby after they've already been born. The way it works is that when a baby is newborn, they have essentially no functional immune system. It usually takes a little while to catch up with the whole birth thing. While the little militia is pulling its boots on, the mother provides the baby's first immune protection in the form of antibody-laden milk called colostrum. Colostrum is only secreted for the first day or so and provides a sort of basic protection for the baby while it's own system is coming on line. Cool huh? Well here's where it gets scary. In that disease that I mentioned at the top of the paragraph and don't feel like typing out again, the mother's immune system somehow gets ahold of baby red blood cells (usually following multiple childbirths) and goes into full on attack mode. Now while the baby's in utero this won't matter because that immune system can't get to it. However, once the thing's borne, that passive immunity in the colostrum gets into the baby, thinks "OH GOD WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!" and immediately sets to destroying red blood cells.
Isn't that just horrifying? It's usually not fatal since the colostrum immunity doesn't last too long, but the idea of getting finally out into the world and then having your mother's milk killing your blood
is enough to make anybody a little queasy.
Seriously, it's amazing anybody manages to survive to adulthood.

aww