Two babies ‘got’ cancer from their mother during delivery

Two children in Japan ‘got’ cancer from their mothers, in a rare medical phenomenon, new case reports.

They likely inhaled cancer cells from their mothers, each of whom unknowingly had cervical cancer.

The children each developed lung cancer years later.

A baby has to pass through the mother’s cervix during delivery, and doctors think cancer cells are making their way into the amniotic fluid surrounding the baby, which then inhales the cells as they open their mouth to take their first breath and cry.

It’s extremely rare – only 20 cases have been documented – and the children went undiagnosed nearly two and ten years after their respective birth, scientists reported in a New England Journal of Medicine case study, published this month.

The scientists estimate that about one in 500,000 mothers with cancer will pass the disease on to her baby during delivery.

And only one in 1,000 mothers has cancer in pregnancy in the first place.

Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women. It affects approximately 570,000 women and 311,000 deaths worldwide every year.

And women are diagnosed at the average age of 50, with most cases occurring between the ages of 35 and 44.

Doctors recommend that women be screened at age 25, through physical exams and pap smears, but because cancer is uncommon during the most fertile years of women’s life, it may not be the best choice for those trying to conceive to become .

And nearly half of all pregnancies – about 45 percent – are still unplanned.

Thus, women are often not screened through a prenatal examination before they become pregnant.

Without it, the cancer is difficult to detect.

And even if a woman becomes pregnant while she has cancer or if cancer is diagnosed during pregnancy, it is very rare for the cancer to affect her developing baby.

But there are exceptions, of course – as was the case for the two children described in the case report.

There is no way to prove beyond any doubt that cancer was passed from the mothers to the babies, but there were some telltale signs.

First, the location of the mother’s cancers made it easier to pass them on.

The cervix is ​​located at the bottom of the uterus and at the top of the vaginal opening.

A baby develops in the womb surrounded by amniotic fluid, which acts like liquid insulation to protect the baby and provide it with water, nutrients and other chemicals from the mother.

In the womb, a baby doesn’t breathe like adults. Instead, it takes in oxygen through the umbilical cord and placenta.

So even if tumor cells from the cervix get into the amniotic fluid, there is not much chance that they will be passed on to the baby.

But as the baby passes through the birth canal, there is a short chance of inhaling the amniotic fluid from close to the cervix, allowing tumor cells to enter the lungs.

The first child was diagnosed with lung cancer about 23 months after birth, when he developed a persistent cough.

After several rounds of chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and surgery to remove a lobe from one of his lungs, the child eventually went into remission and was cancer-free a year later.

Unfortunately, his mother’s cancer spread through her body and she eventually died.

But before that, scientists sequenced the genes in the tumors of the mother and child and saw a clear link between them, suggesting that the cancer was likely passed from mother to baby.

The mother of the second child died when he was only two years old.

For four years he showed no signs of illness, but at the age of six he developed chest pain and was also diagnosed with lung cancer.

Genomic sequencing showed that his tumor was also related to that of the mother, and that the tumor was positive for HPV, the STI that is a common cause of cervical cancer, but not lung tumors.

Together, these pieces of evidence suggested that he probably had ‘contracted’ his mother’s cancer.

The boy had to have one of his lungs removed, but was alive and cancer free 15 months later.