In contrast to the Innate Immune System, your Adaptive Immune System is not ready yet when you are born. It needs to be trained and refined over many years. It starts as a blank slate and then gets progressively more powerful, only to get weaker again as you age. A weak Adaptive Immune System is one of the main reasons young and old humans are often much more likely to die from diseases than people in the middle of their lives. Mothers actually lend their newborn babies a bit of their adaptive immunity in their mother’s milk to help them survive and give them some protection!
