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.
They only have 23 chromosomes each. When a woman becomes pregnant, her egg joins with the father's sperm to make a new cell. This cell will grow and divide into a baby. This first cell has 46 chromosomes, 23 from the mother and 23 from the father. All the instructions for how the child will grow are in the genes on these chromosomes. Each cell of the body will contain exact copies of the 23 pairs of chromosomes that were in the first cell that was formed by the egg and sperm.