Researchers at Fred Hutchinson examined the brains of 59 women after death. In 63 percent of them they found male DNA, almost certainly left behind by a son. The oldest of those women was 94, and the cells were still sitting there.
Around week four or five of pregnancy, before most women have told anyone, a handful of the baby's cells cross into the mother's bloodstream. Some of them never leave. Scientists call it microchimerism, meaning you are carrying a few of another person's cells inside you. Doctors at Leiden University in the Netherlands checked organs from women who had recently been pregnant and found the baby's cells in every single one. Liver, lungs, thyroid, kidneys, bone marrow, skin, heart.
They do not sit idle. When researchers in Ireland biopsied cesarean scars from 70 women, they found the baby's cells living in the skin as ordinary skin cells, making collagen and repair proteins right at the cut. The child helped close the wound its own birth made.
At Mount Sinai, scientists tagged fetal cells with a glowing marker in pregnant mice, then damaged the mothers' hearts. The fetal cells went to the injury. They became heart muscle and the lining of blood vessels. Nobody has proven the human version yet, but doctors have noticed for years that women who develop heart failure around childbirth recover better than almost any other kind of heart failure patient.
In a study of 177 women, fetal cells appeared in the blood of 85 percent of the healthy participants and only 64 percent of the women who had a very early, non-invasive breast cancer. Nobody has worked out yet whether the cells are doing the protecting. The same cells also turn up in Hashimoto's, an immune condition that attacks the thyroid, so this is a gift with complications.
A French team looked at umbilical cord blood in 2021 and found cells belonging to the baby's grandmother in 5 of 28 samples. Cells that crossed one placenta decades earlier had crossed a second one. Three generations of women, alive in a single bloodstream.
Which means the pull a mother feels toward her child has a physical form. It sits in her liver, her heart, and often her brain, and it stays there for the rest of her life.
https://t.co/zy6gM4x5tl
5th place at the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women, and it's our second consecutive year on the top 10 in this race!🔥
Huge thanks to:
🥇@yeff_aqm (#14)
🥈@javiercaicedoe (#31)
🥉@tomyag11 (#98)
The streak continues. We’ll keep pushing, keep believing, and keep coming back for more
ESPN Latin America had enough of Pogacar's domination and yesterday, they cut the live broadcast just before he was about to pass the finish line in 1st place lol. 🤪😂🙈
Now seriously, I hope they offered some apologies to the viewers, this was bad.
#LaVuelta26
Lo que hizo @ESPNCiclismo@espn@DisneyPlus en la transmisión de @lavuelta es criminal. Una falta de respeto al ciclismo.
50mts para llegar Pogačar y cortan sin aviso la transmisión, para una previa en tenis. Sin palabras
¿Cómo así que la transmisión latinoamericana de La Vuelta cortó la señal en la definición? No hay respeto alguno por el ciclismo en la cadena deportiva más importante del mundo.
Another unforgettable chapter for Team Giro22Ecu.
Win after win, podium after podium... today we celebrate victory at the Donostia Klasikoa Fantasy. This incredible run is built on passion, teamwork, and trust.
🥇@tomyag11 #26
🥈@GrimbleGrromble #30
🥉@BHHOLA #31
Aurrera beti
What an unforgettable Tour de France!
We proudly finished as the 2nd best Fantasy club, a milestone made possible through passion, teamwork, and commitment from every stage to Paris. The contributors:
🥇@DarioR58323 (#2 🌍)
🥈 @GrimbleGrromble
🥉@Fer_1011
Allez les amies🇪🇨
It is almost time for the #TDF2026, so here’s my stage-by-stage overview! 🇫🇷💛
Hopefully it will make following the race a little easier over the next three weeks🌻
Enjoy, and let’s hope for a great Tour! 🙌
(Psst…. See below to download an iCalendar version 👀)