Pregnancy And Infection Samples for Students †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Pregnancy And Infection. Answer: Pregnancy and infection The above research article describes about the complexity of the immune response occurring at the times of pregnancy of a woman. The immune response by the placenta for specific pathogens affects the vulnerability of the woman to infectious diseases (Mor Cardenas, 2010). It is necessary to assess the interaction of the pathogenic microbes with the placenta and its responses to make an appropriate prophylaxis therapy. Researches regarding this issue have been done by many scientists. This topic has been researched by Gil Mor, Ingrid Cardenas, Vikki Abrahams, and Seth Guller, who had been researching in the department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive sciences. They have focused on the exigent question whether the maternal immunity acts as a friend or enemy during pregnancy. They have tried to establish a new paradigm for the fetal -maternal immune reaction during pregnancy and also the immunological response of the mother to various pathogens. According to the author, their main challenge is to throw light upon the immunological complications of pregnancy for delivering the appropriate treatment to the patients with pregnancy (Mor et al., 2011). During pregnancy the human desidua consists of large number immune cells such as the macrophages, the regulatory T cells and the natural killer cells. At the time of the first trimester the dendritic cells, the NK cells and macrophages infiltrates the desidua and aggregates around the trophoblast cells that are i nvading. reduction of the immune cells terminates the pregnancy (Pazos et al., 2012). Thus the deletion of the macrophages poses a detrimental effect on the placental development. This paper describes the allograft paradigm previously described in the newspaper article. According to the assumption of Sir Peter Medawar, Placenta is actually an allograft that expresses proteins derived from paternal genes and hence should be rejected under normal immunologic conditions but with the increasing knowledge about placental biology, it can be appreciated that placenta is more like a transplanted organ (Robbins Bakardjiev, 2012). The trophoblast and the maternal immunity have evolved in a cooperative way to help out each other for the success of the pregnancy. According to the Racicot ey al., (2014), there are certain immunological phases of pregnancy. The stages of pregnancy are featured by inimitable inflammatory environments. The first and the third trimester are pro-inflammatory and sec ond trimester an anti-inflammatory. During the first stage the blastocysts have to invade the uterus epithelial lining for the implantation, break the endometrial tissue, which is again followed by the substitution of the trophoblast of the endothelium and the vascular smooth muscles of the blood vessels of the mother for an adequate fetal blood supply. The second immunological phase consists of a rapid fetal growth. In the last immunological phase there is an influx of the immune cells. The pro-inflammatory environment causes uterus contraction, expulsion of the baby and placenta rejection. This turmoil of inflammatory response affects the host microbe interaction and caters to different types of infections in would be mothers (Mor et al., 2011). An article related to this topic is pregnancy and infection by Athena P. Kourtis, M.D., Ph.D., Jennifer S. Read, M.D., M.P.H., and Densie J.Jamieson, M.D., M.P.H. The paper had been published from the Division of the reproductive health and promotion, Centers of the disease control and prevention, Atlanta and the Department of the epidemiology and Biostatistics. Kourtis et al.., 2014, have stated that in comparison to the non pregnant women, pregnant woman are more susceptible to infections by viruses like influenza, hepatitis E and Herpes Simplex virus. Pregnancy is featured by its tolerance towards the placenta and the fetus, which allows the growth of the foreign tissue without rejection (Kourtis et al., 2014). The increased level of Estrogen and the progesterone may suppress the humoral immunity by suppressing the production of the B cell in the bone marrow. The ineffective immune response towards viral infections lies in the level of the cellular immunity (Kourtis et al., 2014). The improper immune response to the viral antigens during the gestation period occurs due to the shift in the T-helper cells from the Th-1 and the Th- 2 cytokine (Silasi et al., 2014). The main aim of both the papers is to understand the immunological steps of pregnancy and the host microbe interaction in order to make suitable preventive medications and prophylaxis for preventing infections and pregnancy loss. References Kourtis, A. P., Read, J. S., Jamieson, D. J. (2014). Pregnancy and infection. New England Journal of Medicine, 370(23), 2211-2218. Mor, G., Cardenas, I. (2010). The immune system in pregnancy: a unique complexity.American journal of reproductive immunology,63(6), 425-433. Mor, G., Cardenas, I., Abrahams, V., Guller, S. (2011). Inflammation and pregnancy: the role of the immune system at the implantation site. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1221(1), 80-87. Pazos, M., Sperling, R. S., Moran, T. M., Kraus, T. A. (2012). The influence of pregnancy on systemic immunity. Immunologic research, 54(1-3), 254-261. Racicot, K., Kwon, J. Y., Aldo, P., Silasi, M., Mor, G. (2014). Understanding the complexity of the immune system during pregnancy. American Journal of Reproductive Immunology, 72(2), 107-116. Robbins, J. R., Bakardjiev, A. I. (2012). Pathogens and the placental fortress. Current opinion in microbiology, 15(1), 36-43. Silasi, M., Cardenas, I., Kwon, J. Y., Racicot, K., Aldo, P., Mor, G. (2015). Viral infections during pregnancy. American journal of reproductive immunology, 73(3), 199-213.