Mommy’s Microbial Journey: Baby’s First Gut Friends (2024)

FAQs

What is the mother's gut microbiome to the baby? ›

During and after child birth, bacteria from the mother's gut take up residence in the baby's body, seeding a unique community of beneficial bacteria that will help break down food, synthesize vitamins, and help teach the baby's nascent immune system to recognize foreign organisms.

The microbes your baby picks up change over time [1]. During the first years of life, these changes follow a defined pattern known as gut microbiome maturation [2]. Typically, the gut microbiome reaches full, adult-like maturity by the time your child is 3-5 years old [2], [3].

Newborn babies get their first microbiome from their mother during birth. During that journey, a newborn baby gets completely covered with bacteria, giving it a brand-new microbiome.

The gut microbiota of breast-fed infant is dominated by Bifidobacterium, while formula-fed is dominated by Bacteroides and Bifidobacterium (99). Besides, breastfeeding can effectively prevent infant from being overweight by improving the imbalance of the gut microbiota compared with formula-fed (100).

You might consider supplementing breastmilk/formula with a probiotic. Meenal recommends taking L rhamnosus during pregnancy and giving it to the baby after birth. B. Infantis is the other probiotic that has been proven to help babies in early infancy.

According to Alice Callahan, PhD, infants are born with a “permeable” intestinal lining. This lining easily lets particles pass through into their bloodstream. Yes, this is similar to what the “open gut” theory describes.

The following can be signs of a gut bacteria imbalance: Autoimmune problems, such as thyroid issues, rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes. Digestive issues, such as irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, diarrhea, heartburn or bloating.

Sometimes people ask us if waterbirth influences the newborn microbiome. The only study we found on waterbirth and the newborn microbiome did not show any difference in the newborn microbiome between babies born via water vs. land; however, more research is needed (Fehervary et al. 2004).

For most people, the composition of the gut microbiome returns almost completely to baseline in one to two months. But for a few, things may not go back to the way they were for quite a long time.

However, current research suggests that heritable gut microbiome taxa are uncommon. In humans, only 3 to 13% of gut microbes have non-zero heritability, and one study estimated that overall microbiome heritability may be as low as 0.019 (1, 2, 4, 6, 7).

Does breastfeeding improve the microbiome? ›

' It turns out that breastfeeding plays an important role in establishing a healthy microbiome in babies, which in turn has long-term implications for our overall health. Breastmilk contains a rich and varied array of nutrients that are unique to each mom and baby.

The first 1000 days after birth represent a critical window for gut microbiome development, which is essential for immune system maturation and overall health.

The key takeaway from the first study, which sequenced 12 500 stool samples from 903 children, concluded there are three stages of gut microbiome development: the developmental phase (3–14 months of age), the transitional phase (15–30 months of age) and the stable phase (31–46 months of age) [120].

Increasing evidence on early microbial contact suggest that human intestinal microbiota is seeded before birth. Maternal microbiota forms the first microbial inoculum, and from birth, the microbial diversity increases and converges toward an adult-like microbiota by the end of the first 3–5 years of life.

Microbiota diversity increases with age until it becomes a stable adult microbiota composition dominated by three bacterial phyla (Table 1): Firmicutes (Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae), Bacteroidetes (Bacteroidaceae, Prevotellaceae, and Rikenellaceae), and Actinobacteria (Bifidobacteriaceae and Coriobacteriaceae) ...

The effects of various factors on the maternal microbiome may be passed on to the offspring through microbes, microbial products or metabolites, which regulate early gut colonization, immune maturation, and brain development in infants.

Breastmilk seeds and nurtures the microbiome with beneficial bacteria, until it is fully mature. Beneficial gut bacteria play a role in lowering risk for chronic diseases like asthma, obesity, allergies, dermatitis, inflammatory bowel disease and neurodevelopmental disorders.

The gut microbiome has been shown to change during pregnancy, with the most drastic changes occurring towards the end of pregnancy^1,5,8,12. These changes include an increase in Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria in late pregnancy as well as a decrease in short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) producers as gestation progresses.

Infants born vagin*lly have a gut microbiome very similar to that of their mother's vagin*l and fecal flora. This occurs through vertical transfer of the vagin*l-perianal microbes of the mother as the infant passes through the birth canal (Dominguez-Bello et al., 2010).