Baby showers. Babymoons. Baby-arrival parties. There are many opportunities to celebrate the 40-week transition to parenthood. Often, these celebrations implicitly assume that pregnancy is cooperative and mutually beneficial to both the parent and the fetus. But this belief obscures a more interesting truth about pregnancy – the mother and the fetus may not be peacefully coexisting in the same body at all.
At the most fundamental level, there is a conflict between the interests of the parent and fetus. While this may sound like the beginning of a thriller, this genetic conflict is a normal part of pregnancy, leading to typical growth and development both during pregnancy and across an individual’s lifetime – something my research focuses on.
