Pregnancy, Immune System | featured news

Women who take fish oil supplements during pregnancy may boost their babies’ immune systems and help protect against colds during the first months of life, a new study shows.

It was thought that fetal immune cells were too immature to be useful and that fetuses and newborns relied on antibodies provided by their mothers. Now David Vermijlen at the Institute for Medical Immunology in Brussels, Belgium, and his colleagues have shown that fetuses just 21 weeks old may be capable of fending off infections using ...