Book Review:”Let Them Eat Dirt” – Save Your Child by Saving Their Microbes!

Book Review:”Let Them Eat Dirt” – Save Your Child by Saving Their Microbes!

  “Let Them Eat Dirt: Saving Your Child from an Oversanitized World” provides suggestions for a microbially rich and healthy childhood. Let Them Eat Dirt: Saving Your Child from an Oversanitized World talks directly to parents about the importance of microbes to your young kids. Authors  Brett Finlay, PhD and Marie-Claire Arrieta, PhD have an excellent message – let kids get dirty and quit abusing antibiotics. Let Them Eat Dirt is an engaging read clearly written and written clearly by scientist parents who have been in the “parenting trenches”. This microbiome parenting book is a fun read. Several times I laughed out loud at the references to pregnancy and parenting woes. As a scientist, I appreciated their overall message about the importance of microbes to our health.

“Seeding” a C-section Newborn with Vaginal Microbes: Can we? Should we?

“Seeding” a C-section Newborn with Vaginal Microbes: Can we? Should we?

New research is out today from the laboratory of Dr. Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello demonstrating that at least part of mom’s vaginal microbiome can be transmitted to her c-section delivered infant. Infants born via c-section are at increased risk of developing non-communicable diseases such as asthma, diabetes, immune system disorders, and obesity. C-section babies frequently have a microbiome that is more similar to skin bacteria than mom’s vagina or GI tract. Swabbing a baby at birth with mom’s vaginal fluids is a potentially low cost, easy way to mimic one aspect of vaginal birth and transmit potentially beneficial microbes. Parents considering this procedure should check for the presence of pathogens such as Group B Strep and viral pathogens. Any such procedure should be discussed with your medical care team. For the full post – go to the post at Science and Sensibility’s website. Vaginal Seeding Procedure Illustration by Cara Gibson, Phd

Can Breastfeeding Help Antibiotic-Exposed Microbiomes Recover?

Can Breastfeeding Help Antibiotic-Exposed Microbiomes Recover?

  Exclusive breastfeeding for at least three months may lessen the effect of antibiotic use during labor and delivery on an infant’s microbiome. Cesarean delivery and antibiotic use during vaginal or C-section childbirth decreases diversity of an infant’s microbiome [1, 2]. However, a study by Azad et al. suggests that exclusive breastfeeding for at least three months may lessen the effect of maternal use of antibiotics during labor and delivery on the microbiome [3]. Breastfeeding may repair the infant microbiome after antibiotic use. Birth is a key time for beneficial microbes to be transmitted from mother to infant, especially during vaginal birth [1, 4, 5]. However antibiotics that disrupt microbiome transmission may be used during both vaginal and Cesarean section (C-section) deliveries. During childbirth, especially in Canada and the United States, antibiotics may be used for several reasons. In vaginal deliveries, antibiotics are used to prevent transmission of Group B Streptococcus (GBS) transmission to the infant. However, the use of antibiotics for GBS is correlated with increased antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli infections in infants [6]. Antibiotics may also be given to reduce opportunistic pathogen infections during long labors where the amniotic sac membrane has ruptured. Cesarean section surgeries use antibiotics as

Missing Microbes and Increased Antibiotic Resistance

Missing Microbes and Increased Antibiotic Resistance

Dr. Martin Blaser’s book Missing Microbes details his observations and hypotheses on how overuse and misuse of antibiotics may be the source of modern non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, asthma, and obesity. The maps of the U.S. colored with obesity and antibiotic prescriptions fit extremely well – and centered on my Southern homeland. Could it be that the obesity epidemic, diabetes, allergies, asthma, and other non-communicable diseases that are centered over the American South are not due to our preference for all things fried or sopped in butter and washed down with a swig of sweet tea? It’s not just due to sitting in front of screens too much. Certainly poor diet and little exercise don’t help. But could an over-use of antibiotics also be to blame?  That was the hypothesis. Obesity Caused by Over Use of Antibiotics? Dr. Martin Blaser from NYU’s experimental research on mice demonstrated drastic changes in the different types of gut bacteria present before and after antibiotic use. More strikingly, when the antibiotic use was discontinued and the bacterial populations rebounded, the bacterial types that did come back were different metabolically. Antibiotics drastically effected the gut microbiome. Does antibiotic somehow set us on a path