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Being pregnant might make you age slower

A new study from the Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem found that pregnancy may make women age slower. The study said women undergo a rejuvenating process during pregnancy, which slows down aging, The Telegraph reported.

Since mothers and their children share the same bloodstream, the mother’s older body receives nutrients from the child’s blood that are intended to help the newborn grow — giving the mother a rush of “youth serum,” The Telegraph reported. This slows the aging process for pregnant women and gives them a spike in youthfulness.

“As we age, it is more difficult for our tissue to regenerate itself,” the report said, according to The Telegraph. “Because pregnancy is a unique biological model of a partially shared blood system, we have speculated that pregnancy would have a rejuvenating effect on the mother.”

To find this, researchers studied non-pregnant and pregnant mice who recently had liver transplants. The study found that 96 percent of the pregnant mice healed two days after the surgery, which was quicker than older and younger non-pregnant mice, The Telegraph reported.

Though the study was done with mice, researchers said the findings apply to humans, too, and that the effects only last for the first two months after the baby is delivered.

The study doesn’t mention whether or not the findings are a result of outside factors. Healthy eating and certain diets, which are often recommended to pregnant women to help their children, have also been linked to slowing the aging process. But it’s unclear if the mice in the study were put on healthy diets before they were studied.

The study also questions long-held beliefs that pregnancy makes women look and feel older. Experts told Parents magazine that pregnant women undergo hormonal changes that affect their physical characteristics, which can make them appear older or make them lose some of their attractive physical characteristics.

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