Malfunctions in a small gland in the chest may trigger miscarriage in pregnant women, say researchers.
A developing baby – in effect a foreign object – is a huge challenge to the immune system of the mother.
The discovery by researchers that the thymus gland, situated behind the breast bone, has a key role in ensuring the baby is not rejected by the mother’s immune system will allow drug treatments to be developed to prevent miscarriages.
Researchers at the University of British Columbia and Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, writing in Nature, found that during pregnancy the thymus creates cells known as regulatory T-cells or ‘Tregs’.