“ Babies who are born preterm, in addition to them having less ability to fight infection, are more likely to get infected, either as a consequence of being born premature or exposure to microbes from the mother’s womb…
By adulthood, a community of a hundred trillion microbes form along a person’s gastrointestinal tract, but at birth, the gut is sterile. Microbial colonization of the gut starts upon an infant’s arrival into the world, initiating an immune response…
Pregnant women who take antibiotics could be putting their unborn children at risk of disease. When you interrupt the pattern of colonization, either by giving antibiotics or some other mechanism, you make the babies more susceptible to infection ..”
Sources:
- Going With the Gut to Build Preterm Infants’ Immunity, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Blog, 21 Apr 2014
- New Study of Gut Microbes, Antibiotics Offers Clues to Improving Immunity in Premature Infants, PRWEB, 11781673, 21 Apr 2014
- The microbiota regulates neutrophil homeostasis and host resistance to Escherichia coli K1 sepsis in neonatal mice, Nature Medecine, doi:10.1038/nm.3542, 20 April 2014
- Antibiotics in pregnancy may harm a baby’s immune system by killing the germs that will help make it stronger, DailyMail, health/article-2609737, 22 Apr 2014