Preeclampsia is a medical complication that occurs in pregnancy, characterized by arterial hypertension, edema in the extremities and elevated levels of protein in the urine. It can be mild, but it can be serious, affecting the mother's organs, putting her life and the baby's life at risk. The only "cure" is the birth of the baby, usually induced or by caesarean section if deemed appropriate. That is why research in this regard is important to find methods that can prevent it.
For some time now I have been reading that oral sex practiced by the pregnant to the father of the creature, swallowing the semen, is beneficial as it prevents preeclampsia. Come on, it could be useful if it really is a method to prevent such a complication. However, How much is true in this statement?
Everything seems to be a hypothesis
The causes of a woman suffering from preeclampsia are not clear. In fact, it is not believed to be a single cause, but several that can produce such a complication.
Among those possible causes is that of rejection of the mother's body to the baby. I explain myself: it is believed that normal pregnancy is associated with a balanced state of tolerance by women to foreign antigens of the fetus. Something like the maternal body knows that there is a "foreign body" inside, but without attacking it because it recognizes it as not an enemy.
In a pregnancy in which the woman suffers from preeclampsia it seems that Immune tolerance of women does not work the same, or does not work well, and the body "complains" producing the symptoms mentioned.
That intolerance could be from the mother towards the baby's paternal factors, that is, the body fights against some molecules inherited from the father, which are called HLA (human leukocyte antigens), which are part of every cell and that serve to differentiate what typical of the alien. Let's say they are the molecules that carry the unique code of each individual that informs that each cell is part of that body.
Well, a study conducted at the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands, suggests that oral sex and swallow the couple's sperm (which has to be the father of the creature, of course, because if not, it doesn't work) would help decrease the risk of preeclampsia.
Since in preeclampsia the woman's body does not seem to accept the baby's body well, because of having a strange HLA, consuming seminal fluid, thus ingesting the father's HLA, it could help the woman to better tolerate her baby.
But this is the study hypothesis. The researchers wanted to know if there were HLA and sHLA (soluble HLA) in the seminal fluid of the men and compared the levels of one and the other according to their partners had suffered or not preeclampsia. They saw that, that in man's sperm there is HLA and sHLA (of several different types) and, when comparing the levels of each other, they saw that those whose partners had suffered preeclampsia seemed to have less sHLA.
This could give some validity to the hypothesis, so that men with less sHLA in the semen fertilize children "inoculating" less HLA in women and therefore suffer from preeclampsia, being necessary or recommended that women then ingest the semen of man , by oral sex, to receive in your body the missing sHLA to accept the baby well, not reject it and not suffer preeclampsia.
However, in the study they state that the difference is not significant, that is, in the study it was seen that they had less, but that the difference was so small that it could be coincidence.
So, do you have to practice oral sex during pregnancy to prevent preeclampsia?
Well, as commented in the study, and against the news you find that recommend it, at the moment there seems to be no data to suggest that there is any benefit. If you want to do it, go ahead, it doesn't do badly, but for the moment, it doesn't seem to have been proven to be.
And I say this because in a recent study, published last year, we wanted to know what was the relationship between the woman's frequent exposure to man's sperm, before pregnancy, and the risk of preeclampsia, and thanks to this study we can refine a little more when answering the question that gives title to this post.
Under the hypothesis that a previous and prolonged exposure to paternal antigens in the seminal fluid, orally or vaginally, would help the woman's body to avoid rejection of the fetus and favor a normal pregnancy, they studied a sample of 258 women who suffered from preeclampsia and 182 who had normal pregnancies. All of them had a first son or daughter born alive between 2002 and 2005, in Iowa.
To find out the frequency of exposure to seminal fluid, they studied the type and frequency of vaginal intercourse, the use of contraceptives and oral sex practices with seminal fluid intake.
They saw that women who had been more exposed to paternal semen vaginally were up to 70% less likely to have preeclampsia than those who had been less exposed.
When assessing differences in oral sperm exposure, they saw that there were no differencesThat is, the women who swallowed the most semen before becoming pregnant had the same risk of having preeclampsia as the women who ingested the least.
In conclusion, they confirmed in some way that the hypothesis of mother's rejection of the baby, due to a poor immune adaptation, producing preeclampsia it's true. In addition, they demonstrated that exposure to the paternal antigen through the vaginal mucosa can facilitate immune tolerance to the paternal HLA of the baby and therefore recommended reducing the use of barrier contraceptive methods before pregnancy (something I imagine parents already do , if you are looking for a baby) and increase vaginal intercourse before conception (and I add: and during pregnancy) to reduce the risk of preeclampsia.
Can oral sex reduce the risk of preeclampsia during pregnancy?
As said: it does not seem that oral sex can reduce the risk of preeclampsia, basically because there is no data to prove this relationship. However, we do know that frequent exposure to the father's semen through the vaginal mucosa, before pregnancy, decreases the risk of preeclampsia.
