• Question from:eileen girling

Hi,  Just been reading a story on indian surrogacy. The English genetic  mother says of the Indian  surrogate mum " Her blood will be pumping around the babies body"

But none of the maternal blood enters the fetal body does it?  Thanks as per usual.

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  • University of Bristol
  • Posts: 2,462

You are of course correct Eileen. The placenta allows the exchange of nutrients and wastes but forms a barrier between the two circulations. That said it is not totally impermeable and some cells do make it through though in small numbers. That fact is the basis for some of the new tests that look at genetic abnormalities in the baby on the basis of a maternal blood test.

  • University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
  • Posts: 307

Fetal cells can apparently act as a kind of repair mechanism in the mum's body. The specific examples given were fetal "stem cells" which cluster at sites of damage on the liver and kidneys and heart. They may also play a role against cancers, but as I understand it this is much less clear. Bear in mind that these results were seen in rats and as such cannot be automatically inferred to happen in humans also.