[wordup] Plenty of sex advised for successful pregnancy

[Adam Shand]

So there.  Now get to it boys!

Via: Simon Horsburgh <simon.horsburgh at stonebow.otago.ac.nz>
From: http://www.rsnz.org/news/news_item.php?view=11017

Plenty of sex advised for successful pregnancy
London, Feb 6 Reuters

Sex, and plenty of it, not only increases the odds of getting pregnant, it can 
also help avoid problems that sometimes lead to miscarriages and stillbirths, 
New Scientist magazine said on Wednesday. 

Having sex early and often, even oral sex, with the intended father can reduce 
the chances of the mother's immune system rejecting the foetus. 

"According to reproductive biologists at the University of Adelaide in South 
Australia, far from being an exercise in futility, plenty of sex - even a full year 
before conception - helps guard against a litany of ailments," the magazine 
said. 

The more accustomed the woman's immune system is to the man's sperm, 
the less likely her body will be to reject the foetus, which contains foreign 
proteins from the father, according to the scientists. 

Immediate rejection of the fertilised egg can cause infertility or, if the mother's 
immune system works more slowly, miscarriages can occur. 

The Australian scientists also suggested that immune rejection could lead to 
pre-eclampsia, a potentially fatal condition that can cause high blood 
pressure and convulsions in women. But they said the theory was still 
controversial. 

"We see patients that have two miscarriages, then they finally manage to get 
through their miscarriage period and they have pre-eclampsia, or the placenta 
detaches and they have a stillbirth at 24 weeks," Gustaaf Dekker, a member 
of the research team, told the magazine. 

The placenta is the lifeline of the foetus, supplying oxygen and nutrients. 

Sperm is full of foreign proteins, so the woman's immune system goes into 
high alert at the first sign of it, but the scientists said it also contains 
components that promote acceptance by the woman's body. 

"If there's repeated exposure to that signal, then eventually when the woman 
conceives, her (immune) cells will say: 'We know that guy, he's been around 
a long time, we'll allow the pregnancy to continue'," Dekker added.