Antibodies or adaptation? Let's rethink Rh incompatibility

Let’s Talk About the Rh Factor in Pregnancy
Where did this idea come from, and what is really going on?

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. The idea that a mother’s body could turn on and attack her own baby,the life she created. This just never made sense to me. Our bodies are biologically designed for survival, for reproduction, and to protect life. So why would our bodies suddenly create something like “antibodies” that could harm the very being we are meant to nurture?

It just didn’t add up. Can we really believe that nature got something this important so catastrophically wrong?

When I discovered German  New Medicine  and the Five Biological Laws of Nature, the pieces finally started to fall into place. Just like modern medicine blames microbes for disease simply because they are present during the healing phase, they’ve done the same thing with antibodies. Because antibodies are visible, testable, and measurable, their presence is mistaken for the cause. But presence does not equal causation.

Let’s go back to when all this started. In the early 1900s, birth was slowly moving out of homes and into hospitals. With that came fear, disconnection, loss of autonomy, over-medicalization, intervention, trauma, and separation. Birth became a medical event, not a sacred process. And soon after, doctors began to notice that some babies were showing certain symptoms after birth. Symptoms we now associate with Rh incompatibility.

Then in 1939, a physician named Philip Levine reported a case involving a stillborn infant and maternal antibodies. By 1940, scientists had identified what they called the Rh factor—a protein on red blood cells. In cases where Rh-negative mothers were carrying Rh-positive babies, and symptoms appeared, the antibodies became the scapegoat. The mother’s immune system was blamed. Her biology was painted as the problem. Her own body was said to be turning against her baby.

Can you imagine? Instead of asking why birth was becoming increasingly traumatic, why more mothers were experiencing fear and intervention, the medical system blamed the mother’s blood. They made her the scapegoat.

By the 1950s, treatments like blood transfusions for newborns were being used to “fix” this new problem. Then, in the 1960s, the RhoGAM shot was developed, marketed as a miracle solution. It’s still used today. An Rh-negative mother is typically given the injection at 28 weeks, and again after birth if her baby is Rh-positive. The idea is to prevent her body from developing antibodies in future pregnancies.

I was one of these mothers. I received this injection with every pregnancy. I remember with my third baby, being called into the hospital just a few days after giving birth and being told I needed another shot. I didn’t really know why, and I didn’t question it at the time.

And this is where most people stop questioning. The story is: a mother’s body could attack her baby. There is danger. And there is a shot that can save the baby. But what if those baby symptoms were never caused by Rh differences to begin with?

Let’s look at this through the GHK lens.

In German New Medicine, symptoms are not malfunctions. They are intelligent, biological responses to a conflict shock, a DHS. These conflicts are deeply felt, unexpected, and isolating. They can happen to the mother or the unborn child. And they trigger specific biological programs designed to help the body survive and adapt. When the conflict is resolved, the body begins to heal and this healing phase is when the symptoms show up.

So what were those symptoms really about?

Newborn jaundice, for example, is understood as the healing phase of a territorial anger conflict, usually involving the bile ducts. This conflict might come from the baby experiencing a shock during or after birth. Bright lights, rough handling, separation, loud noises. It can also reflect the mother’s inner emotional landscape if she feels violated, threatened, or out of control during birth. The bilirubin buildup is part of the tissue repair and detox.

Anemia or low red blood cell counts in the baby can follow a self-devaluation conflict, often triggered by a dramatic or invasive birth, or a sense of biological helplessness either in the baby or in the mother. A stressful delivery, intense medical management, or even the mother's deep fear for the baby’s safety can trigger this type of program. The loss of red blood cells is part of the conflict-active phase, and replenishing them is the healing.

Immune-type reactions, like what's described in so-called Rh disease, are not the immune system attacking the baby. In GHK, these are part of the healing phase after an attack conflict or separation conflict. The fetus may experience a symbolic "attack" from a needle or forceps, or a sense of loss if the mother is emotionally unavailable or physically separated. The symptoms reflect biological repair, not destruction.

So what was labeled as Rh incompatibility was not a blood-based malfunction, but a set of intelligent biological healing processes most often triggered by the intense, high-intervention birthing environment itself.

And yes, these same symptoms often appear in babies born to Rh-positive mothers with Rh-positive babies when no Rh incompatibility exists at all. But without a mismatch to test, there’s no easy answer. So it's ignored, or explained away. But it still happens. That’s the part they don’t talk about.

So what’s the real issue? What should we actually be looking at?

Our entire industrial model of maternity care is built on fear and control. From the very first prenatal appointment, women are surrounded by warnings, risk factors, testing, and imagined complications. This fear is not benign. It is biologically significant. And it runs deep, not just in the medical system, but in our culture, in our conditioning, in the generational stories passed down about birth being dangerous, unpredictable, something to be managed.

But pregnancy was never meant to be managed this way. It is sacred. It is a time of deep transformation, a time when a woman should be protected, nurtured, and supported. Instead, we have wrapped it in anxiety, intervention, and surveillance. We tell women their bodies are dangerous. We make them doubt their biology. We surround them with stories of dysfunction, risk, and worst-case outcomes.

This is not care. This is management. This is control. And it is causing the very issues we pretend to prevent.

I am offering another perspective. One based not in fear, but in trust. Your body was made to carry life. It is intelligent, capable, and beautifully designed. There is nothing broken, nothing to fix. It’s time we return to trust. Trust in our biology, in our design, and in the deep wisdom within us.

With Love,

Christina Rigutto
Co-founder Reclaming Birth Conference
@wild.spirit.birth