“Dr. Haig argues, a mother and her unborn child engage in an unconscious struggle over the nutrients she will provide it”….
“A fetus does not sit passively in its mother’s womb and wait to be fed. Its placenta aggressively sprouts blood vessels that invade its mother’s tissues to extract nutrients.
Meanwhile, Dr. Haig argued, natural selection should favor mothers who could restrain these incursions, and manage to have several surviving offspring carrying on their genes. He envisioned pregnancy as a tug of war. Each side pulls hard, and yet a flag tied to the middle of the rope barely moves.”
Kids as aggressive blood suckers. Sounds about right to me.
Apt. 11d 
On the other hand, I was reading recently that the developing fetus may give its mom stem cells!
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we have long thought that our kids’ habit of crawling into bed with us in the middle of the night is a strategy to keep from having any more siblings to compete with them.
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I seem to recall that the fetus will also (as long as we’re indulging in the pathetic fallacy to the fullest) sacrifice its life for its mother in the case of toxic fumes and such, greedily sucking them up so that she doesn’t bear the full brunt of them.
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Midwives have long beleived that pre-eclamsia is related to insufficient protein in the diet. This fits in with that theory.
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The hormonal changes produced in the mother by breastfeeding are another similar example.
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Having been wasted by a fetal parasite (hyperemesis), I found that article pretty fascinating.
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I wish those damn kids would give me back the entire cup size I lost to breast feeding.
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