11/11/2022 0 Comments Syncios virus![]() ![]() “This wall of cells keeps mom and baby working in harmony and not killing each other. “This is where the magic happens,” Coolahan said. It’s literally a layer of cells that have fused together, forming a wall. The syncytiotrophoblast is the outermost layer of the placenta, the part that is pressed against the uterus. “And so the separation of these bloodstreams is established through this cell layer called the syncytiotrophoblast.” “It’s important that the maternal and fetal blood streams remain separate,” Chuong said. “If you think about a chicken egg - that’s exactly what the yolk is, it’s a care package that has to last the embryo till it’s born.”Ĭhuong added, “the evolution of placenta essentially involved losing that eggshell and instead replacing that with some sort of tissue or organ that attaches to the mother’s uterus during development.”īut losing that shell presents some challenges. “All the nutrients baby needed had to already be in the egg from the get-go,” said Coolahan. So before placentas, a baby had to be in an eggshell. Before that, if you wanted to reproduce, you had to lay eggs. ![]() According to Chuong, “The placenta we think of as a defining characteristic of live-bearing mammals … primates, rodents, dogs, cats, etc.,” is estimated to have evolved about 150 million to 200 million years ago. She stumbled across a paper by Ed Chuong, who researches molecular cellular developmental biology at Biofrontiers Institute in Colorado. But if the mother and baby ever actually touched, or if any blood got through, the mother’s immune system would immediately kill the baby.Ĭoolahan kept researching. For example, medicines can get through, protective antibodies can get through. It has to let oxygen and nutrients get to the baby, and it has to let carbon dioxide and waste get out. ![]() So the placenta has to be the most incredible gatekeeper. “And that, from an immune standpoint, is fascinating, because if you were to receive a piece of someone else and insert that under your skin, that would not last there for three days, your body will actively reject it.” Because half of the fetus is maternal, but the other half is paternal, and yet the pregnancy can go on for nine months without the mom’s body destroying it,” Barroeta said. “The placenta is essentially a fascinating organ because it allows for two human beings that are genetically very different. Second, it’s the baby’s lung, it’s a waste-disposal system, and it’s a nutrition source.”įor the placenta to do all that amazing stuff, it has to do something no other tissue can do. “That’s where I started to realize the placenta was even more interesting than it looked,” Coolahan said. That’s where she met Julieta Barroeta, who specializes in gynecological pathology at Cooper University Hospital. Most people would have followed the baby, but she decided to follow the placenta. That thicker part is the placenta.įor whatever reason, the placenta whose delivery Coolahan observed needed some further inspection in the pathology lab. The sac is made by the baby - one part of it thickens and basically attaches to the womb. If you picture a baby in the womb, it’s sitting in a thin sac filled with amniotic fluid. It looks like it should be pulsating because it looks like it landed here from another planet,” Coolahan said. “And then you have one lonely resident at the foot of the bed who is slowly pulling something out of mom’s uterus … he pulls it out, does a quick inspection, then slaps it on the table and turn back towards mom. “I’m in the labor and delivery room, and I’m witnessing this whole miracle-of-birth thing, it’s amazing,” Coolahan remembered. Kelsey Coolahan’s obsession began during her third year at Cooper Medical School, part of Rowan University in New Jersey. ![]()
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