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In mother-and-child paintings and Henry Moore sculptures, mothers and babies meld together with such ease they appear as one. But in the course of some pregnancies, the embryo's struggle for nutrients can escalate into all-out war with the mother, a dangerous condition called pre-eclampsia. During a healthy pregnancy, the mother's immune response against an invading foreign tissue -- including an embryo and placenta -- is dampened. Pre-eclampsia, a form of high blood pressure in pregnancy that strains the mother's kidneys, results when that process is thwarted, the researchers suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]