Specifically wondering why surrogate’s body doesn’t attack the zygote/fetus as if it’s a foreign body.
Of course as I’ve typed this out I’m wondering if it’s the same reason babies aren’t attacked in the womb in any other situation, the placenta?
In: 3
What you don’t know is that the placenta has a membrane through which oxygen and nutrients pass from the mother’s blood to the fetus’s and CO2 gets passed back. The mother’s blood does not mix with the fetus’s blood and so the mother’s immune system does not normally sample the fetus’s proteins to start an immune reaction.
Other than that the mother’s immune system is partially inactivated starting from the implantation. [Science Daily article](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120607142244.htm)
Latest Answers