I am Sicilian
An appreciated experience at the local grocery store is responsible for this blog post. We live just around the corner from Angelo Caputo’s, the family owned Italian marketplace, that has become known for Italian specialties and “always good food – cheap”. One usually hears Italian spoken there, oftentimes it is from the older couple arguing over lemons and fresh basil in the produce section. Today, as my two sons and I were en route down one of the pasta aisles, there were two older gentlemen humming out that familiar language. Suddenly, they stopped, pointed at me and said,
“You – Sicilian!”
“Yes,” I replied, (I can explain the technicalities of that one in a moment), while trying to deflect the attention to my sons who really are Sicilian.
I am actually mostly German and Irish. However, some recent research says that since giving birth I am part Sicilian, too. The idea is that fetal cells, being made up of mom and dad’s DNA, tend to linger in mom’s blood for a long time after baby is born. Since I have given birth six times, I am Sicilan X 6.
One study, written about in Volume 13, No. 2, of the American Academy of Pediatrics News, says that these fetal cells have been discovered up to 27 years after a mother giving birth. This supports mothers having a physical tie to their children:
“Through fluorescence-activated cell sorting and polymerase chain reaction, male DNA was detected in 13 of the 19 women carrying a male fetus and in four of the 13 women carrying a female fetus.”
Another study by NPR (February 8, 2006) reports that these lingering baby cells stay with the mother and – like stem cells – may help repair damage when mom gets sick for the rest of her life.
A third study in the November 19, 2008 edition of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette puts a name on this “cell-trading” process, fetal microchimerism. The researchers at the Western Pennsylvania Cancer Institute at West Penn Hospital have found that fetal cells that mothers got from their sons may protect them against cancer.
So, when I answered affirmatively to the Italian speaking gentleman’s question, I was technically correct.
I am Sicilian, by marriage. It’s in my blood.
