During pregnancy and birth, The body of a mother undergoes exorbitant amounts of stress. Several stressors, ranging from the ingestation and injection of various drugs, to the physical distortion of carrying and forcing out a creature about as ergonomically designed as a Ford pinto, to the possibility of an active and surgical removal can all work together in forming inflammation and other environmental changes throughout the body. If last week’s readings taught me anything, it’s just how devastating critical conditions created by actions like those above can be on the microbial community in an individuals body, often resulting in disbiosis as the microbe balance is flipped on its head.
As far as the infant is concerned, its entire development thus far has involved floating in a hermetically sealed sac and absorbing nutrients that are identical to those being used by its mother. At the time of birth, this carefully maintained environment is finally shed, and the infant is exposed to an entire world of microbes just waiting to assimilate into his blossoming microbiota. At this point, unburdened by the large number of microbes that will follow him through the rest of his life, the infant is capable of hosting flourishing microbial communities, as they have little competition at the start of life.
As a side note, the place that an individual is born can also have a great influence on how their microbial balance is adjusted. In a sterile hospital setting, there may be very little transmission of outside organisms to the new mother and child, however, the same precess (involving two severely immunocompromised individuals I ay ad) taking place in an unclean and/or pathogen ridden place can have the opposite effect.
