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Updated: Dec 2, 2025

Isolation of Leukocytes from the Murine Tissues at the Maternal-Fetal Interface
Published on: May 21, 2015
Maternal Immunological Adaptation During Normal Pregnancy
Bahaa Abu-Raya1,2,3,4, Christina Michalski2,3,4, Manish Sadarangani1,2,3,4
1Vaccine Evaluation Center, BC Children's Hospital Research Institute, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
The risk and severity of specific infections are increased during pregnancy due to a combination of physiological and immunological changes. Characterizing the maternal immune system during pregnancy is important to understand how the maternal immune system maintains tolerance towards the allogeneic fetus. This may also inform strategies to prevent maternal fatalities due to infections and optimize maternal vaccination to best protect the mother-fetus dyad and the infant after birth. In this review, we describe what is known about the immunological changes that occur during a normal pregnancy.
The risk and severity of specific infections are increased during pregnancy due to a combination of physiological and immunological changes. Characterizing the maternal immune system during pregnancy is important to understand how the maternal immune system maintains tolerance towards the allogeneic fetus. This may also inform strategies to prevent maternal fatalities due to infections and optimize maternal vaccination to best protect the mother-fetus dyad and the infant after birth. In this review, we describe what is known about the immunological changes that occur during a normal pregnancy.
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