Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/869597
Page 22| Abby's Magazine - www.AbbysHealthAndNutrition.com recommend putting the dropper next to your nipple while you're nursing and letting baby swallow the milk-probiotic mix while nursing. But baby can also just take it directly from the dropper between nursing. Another way to give it to baby is to put the dose of probiotic into a clean dish, dip your clean pinkie finger into the powder, and let baby take it off your finger until the full dose has been taken. Don't dip your finger directly into the probiotic jar – you might damage the strains. Probiotic Safety Given the volume of use, and over 26,000 reports in the medical literature, with only a very limited number of case reports of adverse effects, probiotic use in overall healthy infants is considered quite safe. Their use is not recommended in infants with indwelling catheters or who are immune-compromised. Vaginal Swabbing Research being done into "vaginal swabbing," or what some are referring to as "microbiome seeding," has shown promise in helping to, at least partially, restore the flora of babies born by cesarean section. The procedure is quite simple: A sterile gauze is folded into a 'fan' shape. This is then moistened with sterile water and inserted into the vagina and left to 'colonize' for one hour. The gauze is then removed and put into a sealed bag until the birth of the baby. At birth, given to the swab is wiped over the baby's face to mimic passage through the birth canal. The leading researcher in this emerging area is Maria Dominguez-Bello, who in a 2012 study enrolled 7 women who delivered vaginally and 11 who were going to have a C-section. Four of the women who were having a C-section prepared the microbial transfer in advance. Within 2 minutes of birth by cesarean, a gauze, "inoculated" as described above, was swabbed all over their newborn's body. The four babies who received the swabs harbored skin, gut, anal and oral bacterial communities that were more like those of infants delivered naturally, compared to the C-section- delivered babies who did not go through the procedure. Dominguez-Bello says that these effects are long-lasting, and her team is now working on a study looking at the effects in about 75 babies after a year. Most physicians, midwives, and scientists recommend waiting until more evidence is available before commonly practicing vaginal seeding. All agree that women should be tested for GBS, HIV, Hepatitis B & C, and VDRL before assuming, that seeding is optimally safe. Some families, however, are not waiting for conclusive research to try the procedure for themselves. Of note, not everyone is jumping onto the vaginal seeding trend. French obstetrician and long-term natural birth advocate Michel Odent is an outlier, for example, cautioning that babies born "in the caul" (with the amniotic sac still intact at birth) would not have received inoculation from direct contact with the mother's vaginal flora, and postulates that this was much more common in traditional, undisturbed births with no vaginal exams in labor. However, there's no evidence that being born in the caul was at all common; in fact, it was rare enough that many cultures considered it to have magical import for the baby. There's also no evidence to suggest whether these babies did, or didn't have, the problems associated with lack of microbiome exposure. Further, the lifestyles of people living in traditional cultures (being born in the non-sterile home environment, living close to the land, interacting with soil, animals, and each other in close proximity) also supported the development of an optimally intact microbiome. In my opinion, microbiome seeding of the newborn is quite promising, and with proper testing for infections in mom, is likely quite safe. But it's important to remember that other epigenetic, metabolic, and neurologic shifts happen, as a result of vaginal birth that cannot be replaced by vaginal swabbing, so this technique cannot become permission to tolerate the high rate of cesareans we are seeing; vaginal seeding is not compensation for missing a healthy vaginal birth. It is a potentially valuable stop-gap method for when cesarean is needed. Forgiving Ourselves (and Doing Our Best) We are not to blame for the social, economic, and political factors that have led to the massive overuse of medications and surgeries, and for some time to come, many women will continue to experience unnecessary treatments. Also, sometimes an antibiotic or a cesarean is necessary. The best thing we can do is to be educated and have the support we need to stand up and say, "Enough is enough," and have the tools we need, like the information in this article, to help nature restore what may be disrupted. Enjoy being a mom!