Enter the shrine
All kinds of things go into a woman’s vagina. Some are friendly (like sperm and vaginal microbes), and some are very bad (STDs). The immune system in the vagina has to be able to tell the difference and react appropriately. As you can imagine, the system isn’t perfect and sometimes things go terribly wrong.
An article published earlier this month in the journal Frontiers in Immunology reviewed the current state of knowledge of the vaginal immune system. […]
if a woman should become pregnant, her immune system has to know that it can’t attack the growing fetus, even though it’s technically a foreign object. […] When sperm enter the vagina, it sets off a rapid response in the cervix called the leukocyte reaction. A whole slew of immune cells rushes to attack and kill the invading cells, also known to the future baby as ‘dad’. This might be partly why millions of sperm are needed in order for just one to fertilize an egg.
