Objective: Normal pregnancy has been proposed to be a state of physiologic activation of
the innate limb of the immune response. Recent studies have concluded that normal
pregnancy produces inflammatory changes in peripheral blood leukocytes akin to those of
sepsis. This unexpected observation has implications that are critical to understanding the
susceptibility of pregnant women to sepsis, the pathophysiology of preeclampsia, and the
biology of normal pregnancy. This study was designed to examine the phenotypic and …