Did you know that your baby receives important bacteria from you during birth and immediately afterwards?

How amazing! This is regardless of whether they were born via natural delivery or C-section too.

Researchers have found that mothers are able to transfer bacteria to their babies in different ways such as through the vaginal canal during birth in a natural delivery and through breastmilk whilst breastfeeding.

Microbiome transfer and development are so important that evolution has ensured that those microbes are somehow transferred from mother to child starting in utero.

Therefore, breastfeeding becomes even more important for microbiome development, particularly for babies who are born via C-section and who don’t get the same gut and vaginal microbes from their mothers.

It’s a clever system to make sure the child starts life with the right starter kit!

A study done in 2023, investigated 120 Dutch mothers and their newborn babies and took repeated samples from both the baby and mother. They took the samples 2 hours after birth through to 1 month of age.

The researchers found that about 58 percent of a baby's microbiome comes from the mother! The researchers are also wanting to understand how microbiome development in infants relates to their long-term health outcomes – which is important for our little ones.

It is great to see this important research being done for our babies, to help shape their future health and wellbeing outcomes for happy and healthy children!

To read the full research article, click here.

_{Image courtesy of @felicityegginton}