Many phases of women’s reproductive cycle, from menstruation to labor, resemble the kind of inflammatory response the human body usually mounts when invaded by pathogens, except that in the reproductive case the targets are not pathogens but human cells and tissues. Menstruation, for example, is not the gentle, autumnal-sounding process of “shedding” an endometrial lining that it is usually described as. When no embryo implants, the uterus releases chemical signals summoning immune cells to come in from the bloodstream and devour its thick endometrial lining, which quickly becomes a killing
...more
