The assigned material this week has enlightened me on numerous variables that can influence the development of microbial communities in newborn infants.
To begin with, an obvious one would seem to be the nutritional (or not so nutritional) intake by the mother. As the food chosen by the mother is the food received by the fetus, the mother can strongly impact the composition of her fetus’s microflora based on her introduction of healthy or unhealthy sustenance.
On a similar note, where the mother chooses to acquire her food could have direct impact as well. There are a multitude of facilities offering fast and easy food, and while this is a totally normal occurrence in every day life, the introduction of pathogenic microbes via unsanitary conditions would be more significant for a fetus, compared to someone who has established their gut composition and the commensals there.
Something made aware to me just this week is that the mode of birth could potentially shape the fetus’s microbial composition. In a seemingly simple choice between vaginal birth or cesarean section, the newborn’s early stage health could be determined.
The environment around us holds innumerable chances for exposure to a range of microbes and the environment that the parent chooses to raise the newborn in would have understandably large impact on their species diversity and which taxa would be most dominant.
Nutrition continues to be an important factor after birth for both mother and newborn. Nutritional intake on the mother’s part is directly incorporated into the breast milk received by the newborn. With full vulnerability in a brand new world, nutritional values may be even more important to the newborns in this stage more than ever.
