Finally, I am in the mood for some science, albeit it involves my favorite topics - poop and babies.
The human body is the habitat for millions of bacteria and they actually take care of us in more ways than one. But what is interesting to note is that a baby in-utero, lives in a very sterile environment. There are not bacteria in the womb. So what causes the baby to produce its first poop? After all poop is bacterial action in the gut. Apparently, the first poop is not poop at all, in the sense that it is meconium, which is nothing but intestinal epithelial cells, mucus, amniotic fluid, bile and water. Not poop.
So when the baby comes out, it is literally taken over by bacteria. In about four days, the baby has all the bacteria it needs to function properly. The gut is colonized and so is every other part of the body that bacteria colonize and take over, mostly for our benefit. Now comes the the next question. Where does the baby get the bacteria? Not all of them are airborne.
That happens during the birthing process itself. It is the vaginal and rectal bacteria present in the mom that find their way into the baby. That is the fastest and most secure passage for the bacteria. C-section babies obviously get them too, but their flora [1] is a little different because they do not pass through the birth canal entirely. The diverse the flora is, the better the baby is. But after about a week, both c-section babies and vaginal babies have the same amount of diversified flora and so it is not a big issue. And that is how we get our gutly neighborhood bacteria.
[1] Why bacterial content is called flora and not fauna? I don't know, it is what they are called. I am not a taxonomist, in fact I did not study biology beyond the 10th standard. So if you know why they are called flora please enlighten me.
The human body is the habitat for millions of bacteria and they actually take care of us in more ways than one. But what is interesting to note is that a baby in-utero, lives in a very sterile environment. There are not bacteria in the womb. So what causes the baby to produce its first poop? After all poop is bacterial action in the gut. Apparently, the first poop is not poop at all, in the sense that it is meconium, which is nothing but intestinal epithelial cells, mucus, amniotic fluid, bile and water. Not poop.
So when the baby comes out, it is literally taken over by bacteria. In about four days, the baby has all the bacteria it needs to function properly. The gut is colonized and so is every other part of the body that bacteria colonize and take over, mostly for our benefit. Now comes the the next question. Where does the baby get the bacteria? Not all of them are airborne.
That happens during the birthing process itself. It is the vaginal and rectal bacteria present in the mom that find their way into the baby. That is the fastest and most secure passage for the bacteria. C-section babies obviously get them too, but their flora [1] is a little different because they do not pass through the birth canal entirely. The diverse the flora is, the better the baby is. But after about a week, both c-section babies and vaginal babies have the same amount of diversified flora and so it is not a big issue. And that is how we get our gutly neighborhood bacteria.
[1] Why bacterial content is called flora and not fauna? I don't know, it is what they are called. I am not a taxonomist, in fact I did not study biology beyond the 10th standard. So if you know why they are called flora please enlighten me.
5 comments:
That was interesting. Now scientists also seem to be wondering about the huge increase in all kinds of food allergies - peanut, milk, you name it. For some reason these allergies seem more prevalent in urban rather than rural settings. Is that because, in our sterilized environment, infants do not get all the bacteria that can digest these foodstuffs?
The word meconium reminds me of the word comium.
Just attempting...
Fauna - A living organism that voluntarily moves
Flora - A living organism lacking the power of locomotion. (dictionary.com)
Very interesting blog!
Lekni, Here you go
Sankar, lol!
RK, so gut bacteria don't walk?
quicksilver, it used to be more interesting, you missed out. :-(
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