Be careful with the headline, let's not believe now that premature babies are as prepared to fight disease as a baby born at term, it is not so, but it is still great news. A recent study has shown that premature babies have a stronger immune system than previously thought, which does not mean they have it as strong as the other babies.
In this study, blood samples from 28 premature babies in their first weeks of life were analyzed and they found that the T cells of the immune system are capable of developing an inflammatory response to the presence of bacteria. Apparently, it was unknown that this happened.
This type of inflammatory response is similar to what happens in the immune cells of adults. How it is produced is very different, and they have confirmed that the immune system of babies and adults does not work the same, but the answer does resemble.
According to Deena Gibbons, author of the study:
We found that babies have an inherent antibacterial defense mechanism that works differently than in adults, but that could still protect them effectively. It could also be a mechanism by which the baby protects itself in the womb from infections of the mother.
The study, which has been published in the magazine Nature Medicine, opens new avenues of research that will be useful to understand how immune cells of the newborn work and why they are so different from those of adults, and at the same time to help develop new treatments that help premature babies improve their immune system in order to protect them from possible infections that, due to the fact of being born before, could be a significant threat to their small bodies.
In summary, it seems that nature has an answer to many possible problems, one of them being prematurity. It is true that they have it harder, it is true that they are even more fragile and helpless than a baby born at term, but there are compensations that help them survive. Skin-to-skin contact helps them grow and gain weight, be calm and mature in a spectacular way, breast milk has a different concentration of nutrients, adapted to premature, to help and tolerate it, to grow and develop better and you see, The immune system also has its own mechanisms to help the baby who should not have been born yet, but is already here, to survive.
