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Petal_Chatoyance t1_issd8j2 wrote

Put simply, babies are most often born in blood and shit. It's messy. And that shit (or thin liquid, or mucus) contains gut bacteria which the baby needs to survive. All it takes is brief contact. Even a birth in water is not free from this issue, the bacteria get into the water. Gut bacteria are crawling all over the anal/genital region all the time, as well.

Babies born under overly-sterile conditions often suffer digestive problems; that messy birth is actually helpful.

They also get some gut bacteria from the mother's mouth, breasts, and any other part of the body they suck or lick.

Fecal bacteria - gut bacteria - get all over everything in such situations, and some of it gets into the babies mouth. Welcome to biological life; it's disgusting, but it works.

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farrenkm t1_ist4qxp wrote

>Welcome to biological life; it's disgusting, but it works.

I'd argue it's only disgusting because we choose to see it that way. Biological life is an amazing and diverse work of machinery.

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Petal_Chatoyance t1_isv362p wrote

You are correct, of course. But the disgust is also part of our wiring. We evolved to find such things disgusting, because in most cases, slimy, poopy, bloody situations are vectors for disease transmission. It serves survival to find all such sensations and appearances disgusting.

Which is why we also have a circuit for shutting it down during things like sex. The same person who is disgusted by slime and goop and oozing will, if aroused enough, find all of those things attractive temporarily.

It's amazing machinery, and amazing evolutionary programming, but - also really grotesque.

Though, as stated, I only find it so because my meat evolved to keep me from messing with it in most cases.

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[deleted] t1_ist9rok wrote

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[deleted] t1_iste9fm wrote

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icd1222 t1_isu1po1 wrote

I’ve heard it’s not uncommon when babies are born from C-section, Dr’s will touch moms bhole and then rub babies lips. 😬

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CommentToBeDeleted t1_isssoew wrote

>Gut bacteria are crawling all over the anal/genital region all the time, as well.

Serious question... for those of us who frequently go down on our partner, do we have a healthier gut biome (or at least one that more closely resembles our partners)?

You know asking for a friend of course...

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NeoKnife t1_issye8s wrote

I remember reading somewhere that spouses tend to have a similar gut microbione.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-37298-9

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bakersmt t1_ist55s8 wrote

I think that may be due to prolonged exposure. Because our bodies attempt to attain homeostasis constantly, our bugs will naturally get rid of a small introduction to something foreign. But if it's a constant input of something foreign it attempts to reach an equilibrium without having to constantly rid itself of foreign bugs.

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Alpacaofvengeance t1_isstubh wrote

Short answer - no. Your individual gut biome 'signature' is established in early childhood and as long as you are healthy it doesn't vary much regardless of where you stick your tongue.

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Chambana_Raptor t1_isswode wrote

Source?

At face value, this implies that probiotics are useless.

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MotherHolle t1_issyhxx wrote

Proof of the efficacy of probiotics is pretty mixed. There's only marginal evidence they might be beneficial when taking antibiotics. Many of the bacteria in probiotics fail to establish in the gut. Fecal transplants, on the other hand, show a lot of effectiveness.

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somirion t1_it1ufm1 wrote

Probiotics are not used to establish a healthy flora, but a flora, that wont hurt you.
If there is nothing and intensines are free for colonization you are asking yeast or different bacteria like clostridium to take a hold there.

If it is colonized already, this is harder.

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Alpacaofvengeance t1_ist0h56 wrote

Probiotics may have some moderate benefit if your gut microbiome has been peturbed e.g. you are taking antibiotcs or you've has diarrhea. But if you're healthy then there's not a lot of confirmed benefits.

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PhilosopherDon0001 t1_istaoky wrote

Probiotics aren't entirely useless. However, if you look there are usually only a couple of type of bacteria in them.

There are hundreds, if not more, different type of bacteria in your gut.

It's not harmful, but unless you've been on some hardcore antibiotics , it's not that helpful either.

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bogeuh t1_isszmh6 wrote

Yeh, its more like it doesn’t change because you already have the same microbiome as your partner.

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uniab t1_isun72m wrote

That’s not true at all…

Antibiotics are a great example, they kill of a huge amount of bacteria a leave behind a micro biome with significantly less diversity. Then through eating some new bacteria can colonize.

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allminorchords t1_isvblqn wrote

In peritoneal dialysis, it is common practice in my region to have patients taking any oral/IV/IP abx to take probiotics to prevent colonization of yeast in the peritoneal cavity.

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somirion t1_it1u9ei wrote

It should be common everywhere.

Add also clostridium difficile, usually older patients.

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danja t1_isvn3bv wrote

Nah. That doesn't make any sense Why should the first things in your gut be the best?

A course of antibiotics will hammer the bacteria, a different set will surely grow back. Over the course of, call it a year, you have to encounter critters that're better suited than the last lot.

Also, faecal transplants.

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sciguy52 t1_isvuoer wrote

Not likely. Your gut microbe actively defend their "territory" in the gut. They are not going to give up such valuable real estate without a fight. This is called microbial antagonism. So you may ingest all sorts of bacteria be it sex or just eating, if you are healthy you already have microbes in place and whatever you are ingesting basically can't easily take hold because of this. Not saying it can't happen at all, it is just that the microbes are not just "passively" there, they are there and intend to stay. That involves various biological processes they use to make sure they do. One is to simply take up all the real estate so something coming through has no space to colonize.

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manofredgables t1_iswrd3s wrote

Our stomach invests quiet a lot of effort into killing any living cells that enter it. Very little will survive to the gut. Infants are likely to have a pretty weak line of defense.

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bakersmt t1_ist5le3 wrote

All of this. This is why cesarian births aren't optimal for the overall health of the baby. I did read somewhere about how one doctor was trying to remedy that situation by doing a quick swipe of birthing muck inside newborn nostrils and mouths when they are born cesarean. I don't remember if anything came of that though or if he proceeded to a testing phase etc.

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TheBetaBridgeBandit t1_istjml1 wrote

Yeah, it would seem that issues with cesarian births that are 'sterility-related' (i.e. skin/oral/gut microbiome composition) should be relatively easy to fix with artificial application of the relevant mucus/fluids/culture from the mother.

But as is the case with much of biology and medicine it may also turn out to be much more complicated than simply applying some vaginal mucus, placenta, or what-have-you.

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Tyrosine_Lannister t1_isuar2a wrote

Yeah it's...not well-supported by the literature. This suggests it's apparently more complicated than just the actual passage through the birth canal, too

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Zev0s t1_isvz9p4 wrote

I get what you're saying, but cesarean births are usually performed when the probable alternative is a stillbirth, in which case it is giving the optimal outcome.

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jonathanrdt t1_istfg5y wrote

Surgical deliveries are being shown to alter the development of the microbiome and may well be the explanation for the rise of autoimmune dysfunction, allergies, and food sensitivities.

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ShinjiteFlorana t1_istrsfo wrote

In that case are C-section babies at a disadvantage somehow? I feel like that would be easily documented as well.

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Tyrosine_Lannister t1_isugadt wrote

It's a fact, yeah.

But it's not the passage through the vaginal canal that's important, it's the antibiotics that the mother gets.

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Petal_Chatoyance t1_isugiw5 wrote

It is. Fortunately, bacteria are everywhere, and people are messy and sloppy. One way or another, everyone develops a gut biome.

It's just that the best biome comes from your mother, and establishes early. There is speculation that some issues - including obesity - are strongly related to the specific gut biome people gain in early childhood.

Some morbidly obese people might - I stress might, it hasn't been solidly proved yet - could be victims of, well, not enough poop all over them when they were born. They picked up a gut biome from the environment after, and it may not do the right job - goes the theory.

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miketofdal t1_istesju wrote

Cesarian sections bypass this transfer of potentially life-saving bacterium to the child.

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Spanky007_bong_867 t1_istzyyj wrote

I was taught that same thing. Mammals are born with a "sterile" intestinal tract that will gather bacteria from the world around it shortly after birth. Can't claim any knowledge about baby guts, but with puppies, we give them a dose of probiotics then put them on their dam for first milk. We know bad stuff gets in there but we want our good stuff to get their first and start populating the tract. Interesting stuff on this sub.

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Kind_Description970 t1_isv4dft wrote

Yep and there's actually research showing a difference in babies born vaginally vs via c section. Some babies born by c section are actually swabbed with vaginal mucus after delivery to help establish a healthy microbiome.

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molllymaybe OP t1_isvpjh7 wrote

This is really fascinating thank you! I didn’t know that overly-sterile births could potentially be harmful, that’s really interesting

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Petal_Chatoyance t1_isw0ykz wrote

We are not just one being - we are a colony creature. We live only because of other animals that live in, on, and all over us. We couldn't digest our food without our symbiotic gut bacteria. We couldn't avoid being killed by fungus if not for the bacteria on our skin that constantly eats it. We couldn't avoid blindness, save for the microscopic insects that live in our eyelashes - kill them off, and people tend to lose their eyesight.

We are a world, and entire populations live and die upon, and within us. Our biome, our personal ecosystem sustains and protects us.

Yes, sometimes it can all go horribly wrong, when one faction gains an upper hand - that is true. Or if one of the species on us gets into somewhere it doesn't belong, such as if bacteria on the outside manages to get inside. But, in a very real way, we are not one creature.

If we were rendered entirely 'clean', with no cells or organisms upon or inside us of any kind, only human cells, only us, we would die from multiple reasons. It would be a race to see what failed first.

We are many.

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