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Abby's Magazine - Volume 5 Issue 5 | Page 19 facts and experience. But also, when we connect with each other, we release the hormone oxytocin, which not only makes us feel more loved, but also makes us feel safer and braver. I call this the BFF factor, and from an evolutionary perspective, it's a great antidote to the fight or flight response, as oxytocin calms cortisol release, reducing your stress response and its impact on your body. Wishing you a peaceful mind and joyous pregnancy and birth. Protecting Your Baby's Microbiome from the Start Our intestinal ecology is comprised of an estimated 100 trillion diverse microorganisms, collectively called the microbiome. To give perspective on the volume this number represents – your microbiome weighs more than 2 pounds (1 kg), about the weight of your brain. These organisms have a profound impact on nutrient absorption, detoxification, the health of your gut lining, even your moods, appetite, food cravings, how many calories and nutrients you extract from your food, and mental function, and when out of balance, can lead to inflammation, neuro- inflammation, obesity and diabetes, hormonal problems, anxiety, depression, and brain fog. Healthy forms of microorganisms prevent leaky gut. The development of the adult microbiome begins at birth, and to some extent, the influences on the health of the microbiome from birth to age 2, set the potential tone for lifetime health. From the time of birth, the microbiome influences the development of our immune system, and when it is disrupted, we run the risk of all manner of inflammatory and allergic conditions developing sooner, or later, including allergies, food intolerances, eczema, asthma, and autoimmune diseases. Overweight, obesity, and diabetes can also be consequences of faulty microbial colonization. Proper microbial colonization by vaginal birth and breastfeeding set the tone, through a complex network of immune and neurologic developments, for how well we are able to respond to stress. In other words, the health of your microbiome from your earliest life has a role in how well your response to stress and whether you're more likely to find yourself an anxious, depressed adult, and whether you develop intrinsic stress resilience. Further, once the foundation is set, it isn't something you can change retroactively, which sheds light on the importance of understanding the factors that impede healthy microbiome development, and avoiding those whenever possible, both during pregnancy, and after birth, for mom and baby. The biggest risk factors that can interfere with the health of the microbiome are: • Dysbiosis (the overgrowth of potentially harmful bacteria, yeasts, and other organisms, or lack of ample amounts of healthy microbes) • Antibiotic exposure of mom in pregnancy/labor or while breastfeeding • Cesarean birth • Lack of breastfeeding for at least the first 4 months of life, and ideally the first year • Antibiotics given to baby in the first 2 years of life Given that women in the U.S. have a 1 in 3 chance of a cesarean section, and children 2 and under are likely to have at least 2 courses of antibiotics, statistically it's likely that your baby will take a hit to his or her microbiome somewhere in those precious first years of life. In this article, we are going to focus on those exposures and things you can do to protect the baby during pregnancy and birth. To learn more about avoiding antibiotic and medication overuse that can damage the microbiome, and healing and restoring your child's important gut environment, please see my children's health programs here at www.healthiestkids.com. Please know this article is, absolutely, not about judging the type of birth you had, mom judging, or mom shaming. It's simply about the fact that microbiome disruption in early life is a set-up for a host of problems that I know you want to avoid for your baby. If you've had an antibiotic – whether it was needed or unnecessarily prescribed, if you had a cesarean, necessary or not, that is not the issue for this article. This article is simply me reviewing what you can do to help your baby's microbiome, right now.