, which followed seven moms and their babies , scientists fed the newborns a sample of their mother’s poop diluted in 5 mL of breastmilk. Throughout three months of follow-ups, none of the C-section babies experienced any significant adverse effects. And after the first week, their gut microbiomes “showed significant similarity” to those of babies who were born vaginally. Whoa.
Now this may sound pretty gross—and frankly, it kinda is—but it’s not totally unheard of. Fecal microbiota transplants have been used in medicine to treat things such as C. difficile infections and ulcerative colitis since the late 1900s. Nature actually wants newborns to come in contact with their mother’s feces. “There’s a reason the orifice for having babies is next to the anal orifice, in all vertebrates,” Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, who is a microbiologist at Rutgers University,Other mammals do their own version of this, too. Fun fact: After six months of drinking their mom’s milk, baby koalas will switch to a diet of what’s called pap, which is a runny protein-rich poo from their mom, for several weeks.
This is not a DIY hack you can do at home to improve your newborn’s microbiome—it’s a controlled study done under strict supervision. In fact, the researchers explicitly state that this kind of fecal transfer “should only be done after careful clinical and microbiological screening.” And besides, with all the diaper explosions happening during the newborn phase, you’re probably all pooped out anyways.
Get to the bottom of it! No pun intended. 🤣
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