Cultivating Your Baby’s Microbiome (and Some Confessions of a
Pediatrician)
The terms microbiome and gut flora are everyday lingo in some households, like mine. During toddlerhood, my kids would shimmy and squeal, “My gut bacteria are partying, Mommy!” while eating sunflower seeds, lentils, kimchi, or yogurt. In order to grow their best microbiomes, I taught my kids how to be good to them: feed them well and don’t kill them. Foundational to and interwoven with the immune system, gut health starts even prior to birth.
When my brother’s friend Ashley decided to try and become pregnant with her frozen eggs and my brother’s sperm, she changed her lifestyle several months prior to attempting the embryo transfer. She started prenatals, set boundaries to protect time for sleep and personal health, and made dietary changes. For Ashley, that included being gluten-free. While data on non-Celiac women does not support a gluten-free diet for improved fertility outcomes, going gluten free helped Ashley feel better, and many others report feeling the same way. This may be due to an undetectable gluten sensitivity, but also, choosing gluten-free options forces individuals to eat more natural, less processed, and often less sugary foods: fewer donuts or cakes in the office, less crackers and breads to choose from. This leaves room for a more gut-flora-friendly diet that includes cultured foods, fermented foods, and plant foods which fuel beneficial bacteria.
Below I share science-backed advice and personal experiences to help create a healthy gut for your baby, before and after birth:
Preconception and the Prenatal Period: Women often consider protein, fats, and carbs when choosing foods. I would add gut foods to that list. These include probiotic foods like yogurt, cultured cottage cheese, kefir, and pickled foods, such as kimchi or sauerkraut. Gut food also includes prebiotic foods, often high fiber foods, that provide nourishment for the gut bacteria. Turns out, bacteria have to eat, too.
Once the Baby Comes: Vaginal birth exposes babies to all the gut flora cultivated before and during pregnancy. They pass through that canal bathed in everything lining it. Their mouths, eyes, and skin are all coated in Mommy’s microbiome. So what of the C-section baby? Well, my middle child lay comfortably transverse (sideways) breech and I had a C-section. While not recommended outside research protocols, I went ahead and seeded my son with my vaginal flora (I said it! And it is as unappetizing as it sounds, using a gauze to apply a mother’s vaginal flora to a newborn’s face) because I wanted him to have the same microbial access as his vaginally born sisters.
After their births, I also declined the first bath. The white, waxy coating, the vernix caseosa, helps establish the skin and gut flora of infants. While many hospitals now wait 24 hours to bathe, I washed my babies later at home with water (not soap) to preserve their skin barriers and support their microbial growth.
Once the Baby Drinks Milk: Colostrum and breastmilk are optimal for establishing a baby’s microbiome, when possible. If breastfeeding or donor milk is not an option, formula companies try to mimic breastmilk by including prebiotics. In an effort to encourage breastfeeding, many doctors and nurses overlook how maternal mental health and sleep also influence an infant’s gut health. If breastfeeding is too stressful, know that you will grow your baby’s gut through love (both physical and emotional) and the foods you introduce later. Skin-to-skin time is more than just bonding: your skin microbiomes are intermingling.
Once the Baby Can Eat: Starting solid foods is a complicated process. In addition to allergenic foods and iron-rich foods, I recommend adding the following pro-gut-flora foods and activities:
- Lentils and Beans: High in iron, protein, and (ding ding ding) fiber necessary for flourishing flora.
- Seeds: Chia and ground flax can be mixed into oatmeal, yogurt,l or mashed avocado.
- Peels: Don’t peel apples, sweet potatoes, potatoes, or carrots. If peels pose a choking risk, blend or mash them. My kids, now 9, 12, and 14, still rinse carrots and eat them unpeeled (I buy organic produce to avoid pesticide residue).
- Yogurt: Any plain, whole milk (full fat), organic yogurt works. Baby yogurts are marketed toward babies but not superior to grown up counterparts.
- Whole grains: Give your baby proper whole grains: oats, millet, cracked wheat, real rice, quinoa, and more. Avoid the baby cereals which are mill processed, refined, and depleted of their prebiotic components. If you think your whole grain is too coarse, mash or blend it with avocado or yogurt.
- Fruits and vegetables: Keep the peels when possible and include some seeds, as long as they are not choking hazards.
- Variety. Exposure to more types of plants and cultured foods allows a baby’s microbiome more opportunity to diversify.
- Stay away from processed foods like baby biscuits and yogurt melts. These are marketed to teach your baby to eat finger foods, and babies love them because the sugar just melts onto their tongues. The truth is that most infants are so excited to start eating that they don’t need much persuasion. Just put healthy options in front of them, and avoid the brain response that comes with processed foods and fast delivery of sugars.
- Play in dirt and hopefully eat some. If your baby is old enough to sit up and eat, your baby is old enough to sit in the grass or in a playground or eventually cruise along the edges of a tree stump and stomp in mud. Soil and nature expose your baby’s immune system to various favorable flora.
- Be around animals. Pets, like dogs, influence immune development. My kids know they have to wash their hands after they play with other kids or with toys, but after playing in the garden or with a dog, it’s an opportunity to eat a little dirt.
Probiotic supplements: In general, I reserve probiotic supplements for those taking antibiotics which kill off healthy bacteria in the process of killing the offending bacteria. Even then, attention to dietary probiotic and prebiotic intake is paramount. I often recommend rotating different brands of cultured yogurts and a variety of pickled foods, fruits, vegetables, lentils, beans, nuts and seeds in order to re-populate the gut. Some studies found that probiotic supplements in pregnant or nursing moms influences the babies’ microbiome, but the effects are temporary.
In Short:
- Babies start developing their microbiomes in utero and then they get a mega dose when they come through the birth canal.
- A mother can strengthen her own microbiome with a pro-gut-flora diet, one that avoids processed foods and incorporates a variety of cultured foods, fermented foods, and plants, including whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds.
- Colostrum, breastmilk, and the food infants and toddlers eat are major contributors to their microbiome, but your touch and kisses are essential, also.
- Feed infants and toddlers a diverse pro-gut-flora diet to set the groundwork for future nutrition. And start outside play early!
Your home, like mine, can make gut bacteria a part of the family’s vocabulary. Kids and adults alike enjoy helping a friend, and our bacterial buddies are some of our closest ones. Ashley, always a healthy eater but now even moreso, is optimizing her microbiome for her own health and (knock on wood!) her future baby’s. I can’t wait to see the shimmy and hear the “My gut bacteria are partying!” squeals from that little one, too!
Thank you for reading my human generated articles! If you found this helpful or educational, please share, follow on your preferred platform or subscribe below. For coaching or consultations, please contact me at www.DrAngel.com.
Coming Soon: From Funcle To Father: The Fourth Installation. In coming weeks, I will continue with more updates on my brother and Ashley’s journey, from their legal agreements to sperm donations to fertility clinic visits. Please note that Raman and Ashley gave both their permission and input on these articles.
References:
Skoracka, Kinga et al. “Female Fertility and the Nutritional Approach: The Most Essential Aspects.” Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) vol. 12,6 (2021): 2372-2386. doi:10.1093/advances/nmab068
Alecsandru, Diana et al. “Exploring undiagnosed celiac disease in women with recurrent reproductive failure: The gluten-free diet could improve reproductive outcomes.” American journal of reproductive immunology (New York, N.Y. : 1989) vol. 83,2 (2020): e13209. doi:10.1111/aji.13209
Casterline, Benjamin W, and Amy S Paller. “Early development of the skin microbiome: therapeutic opportunities.” Pediatric research vol. 90,4 (2021): 731-737. doi:10.1038/s41390-020-01146-2
Catassi, Giulia et al. “The Role of Diet and Nutritional Interventions for the Infant Gut Microbiome.” Nutrients vol. 16,3 400. 30 Jan. 2024, doi:10.3390/nu16030400
Mutic, Abby D et al. “The Postpartum Maternal and Newborn Microbiomes.” MCN. The American journal of maternal child nursing vol. 42,6 (2017): 326-331. doi:10.1097/NMC.0000000000000374
