What’s Microchimerism and What Does It Have to Do With Christmas?

I learned about microchimerism for the first time in a sermon I read by Pastor Carol Penner given at First Mennonite Church in Vineland Ontario.

The Visitation by Raphael in the Prado in Madrid

Microchimerism occurs during pregnancy when cells from the mother are transferred to her fetus and………… this was something I never knew before…………… cells from the fetus are transferred to the mother.

In her sermon, Carol talked about how each of us has a unique DNA signature in all our cells. Our bodies can’t tolerate cells with someone else’s DNA which is why when people have organ transplants they have to take potent anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives to fool their bodies into accepting someone else’s cells.

But……. pregnancy is an amazing exception. A mother’s body not only tolerates the cells with foreign DNA that exist in the child growing in her uterus, she actually nurtures those cells and……….. her body does not destroy the baby’s cells with alien DNA that transfer into her body and remain there for the rest of her life.

Madonna del Parto by Piero della Francesca

The microchimeric cells that transfer from baby to mother don’t just sit in the mother’s body they grow and multiply and travel to many different places, especially to places where the mother’s body has been injured or damaged.

Scientists are discovering that if a woman gets cancer even decades after she has given birth, microchimerism cells from her child that remain in her body help fight cancer. This may explain why women who have been pregnant have a better prognosis when they get breast cancer.

Morning Star- photo by Kristyn Brown from her Modern Portrayal of Catholic Saints Project

But……….. and this was the most amazing thing for me……… the cell transfer from your child to you doesn’t happen when you give birth it happens in the very early stage of pregnancy.

So even if a woman loses a child that transfer of cells has already happened and the mother will carry the DNA of the child she lost for the rest of her life.

I had three lost pregnancies and even now forty years later, I find comfort in knowing that some cells from those children I never knew are still part of me and will be till I die.

Statue of a pregnant Mary I photographed in a cathedral in Evora Portugal

Carol Penner uses microchimerism in her sermon as an example of how amazing our created bodies are and how during pregnancy love is a two-way street between mother and child as they exchange cells that can nurture and heal. She thinks it is no accident that the Jesus of the Bible came into the world via the body of a pregnant woman.

I am reminded that during his life Jesus encouraged us to make love a two-way street running between God and us and our neighbour.

Other posts………

What If God Is Just a Stranger on a Bus?

She Was 13 Years Old

A Pregnant Mary and a Mary With Knives in Her Heart