Our white blood cells are the centers of antibody manufacture. In pregnancy, the mother has only a weakened version of her partner’s proteins inside her. Injection with his white blood cells, usually before pregnancy, will mean she has the full force to work with. “immunized” is in fact a misleading term. The mother is stimulated” by an injection of her husband’s antigens to produce the blocking factor. If you are already pregnant when the results of the blood test are obtained, you can be immunized while pregnant. Or, if you have just miscarried, then the treatment can be given soon afterward.
With the injection, you will notice to side effect other than maybe a little swelling on the arm where drops of the white blood cells are placed. You will then be tested for its effectiveness, that is, to see if you have produced antibodies. Then, if you are not pregnant, and if you do not conceive for more than six months, you may have to be re-tested and perhaps be given a repeat treatment.
If a woman proves to be too close still to her husband’s antigens, or if he is an unsuitable donor, then white blood cells from an unrelated donor can be injected. Because of the current AIDS scare, many are fearful of taking a stranger’s white blood cells. As a result, plasma from semen is now sterilized and rendered free of viruses. At another center, blood cells from human placentas are used.
The treatment is available right now at only eight centers in the United States. The procedure is improving all the time, particularly in the screening methods used to determine which couples are eligible. The treatment has also been found to be more successful if you have never had a full-term pregnancy before.
As is the case with treatment from an incompetent cervix, this high-tech immunization treatment cannot be given to a patient who is then sent home to hope for the best. Such patients require a lot of medical supervision and, of course, sympathy and understanding. Having lost several pregnancies already, they will be anxious until their baby is born.
