Children Help Their Mothers for Decades

Itninja writes "NPR reported this morning on some interesting findings regarding mothers and their children. From the article: 'Some scientists have proposed that when a woman has a baby, she gets not just a son or a daughter, but a gift of cells that stays behind and protects her for the rest of her life. That's because a baby's cells linger in its mom's body for decades and -- like stem cells -- may help to repair damage when she gets sick. It's such an enticing idea that even the scientists who came up with the idea worry that it may be too beautiful to be true.'"

Comments

Already been proven in rat brain studies

[RootsLINUX]

I read something related to this in a neurobiology article back in October. See this link.

For the lazy, some scientists in Singapore and Asia activated a flourescent green protein in rat males and bred them with normal rat females. After giving birth, the mother rats had neuronal cells with the protein expressed in their brains, making it clear that those cells formerly belonged to their fetuses. And check out this quote:

"Moreover, after the scientists chemically injured the mouse brains, nearly six times as many fetal cells made their way to damaged areas than elsewhere, suggesting the cells could be responding to molecular distress signals released by the brain."

Seems like it makes for a pretty damn good argument for this theory to me.