You should have a colonoscopy every 10 years starting at age 50. Alternatively, you may get a flexible sigmoidoscopy every five years, a double-contrast barium enema every five years or a CT colonography (virtual colonoscopy) every five years. However, a colonoscopy will be needed if any of those results are positive.
Jena Pincott explains that even after a mother gives birth, her babyâs cells remain inside her body â and work tiny wonders. In an excerpt from her book Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies?, Pincott explains that pregnancy is really only the beginning for mother and baby cell-sharing.
If the mother is Rh-negative, her immune system treats Rh-positive fetal cells as if they were a foreign substance. The mother's body makes antibodies against the fetal blood cells. These antibodies may cross back through the placenta into the developing baby. They destroy the baby's circulating red blood cells. When red blood cells are broken down, they make bilirubin. This causes an infant to become yellow (jaundiced).