It's weird to think that there are million (possibly billions?) of lives being lived right inside out own bodies. We carry around anywhere from 2 to 4 pounds of bacteria in our guts. Our bodies are an ecosystem, and that is really....OK, gross in a way, but awesome too! The best news is because of our bacteria we are never really alone. Think about it, if you were stranded in the middle of a desert wouldn't it be comforting to think you and millions of other living things were out there and not just you by yourself? It would make me feel better.
Bacteria is important in child birth too if you can believe that! I just read an article that says that babies born naturally tend to be healthier than babies born C-section because their first contact with skin outside the womb is what forms the base of their bacterial assemblage (for life). Normally when the baby passes through the vagina it picks up the bacteria from the mother, but when the baby is taken straight from the womb, via C-section the child can get the bacteria from the father, or even the doctor or nurses depending on who holds it first, which can cause problems later down the road. Isn't that something? A baby gets it's first does of bacteria before it takes it's first breath!
Our obsession with anti-bacterial everything is...well, not pointless, but at the very least it is over emphasized. Not that I dwell on it, but there is bacteria everywhere, in our bodies, on our skin, on every surface we touch. Some will kill us, and some we would die without, but that's life. What a cool and crazy world hu?
Bacterial in the vaginal canal are an interesting thing! You might notice, if you're ever present at a hospital birth, that once the baby gets cleaned off and wrapped up (and various other important tasks such as finger and toe counting and APGAR scoring are finished), that baby comes back to the mom all wrapped up nice and tight with dry skin (for the first time ever) and very wet looking eyes. I think it's kind of icky looking. However, the goop smeared all over the baby's eyes is (usually) erythromycin (a macrolide antibiotic which inhibits bacterial protein synthesis), which they do as a precaution to prevent blindness. An alarming number of women with gonorrhea are asymptomatic, and an even larger number with Chlamydia don’t know they’ve got it, and both can cause a baby to go blind if transmission occurs at the eyes. So, it’s really a very simple, benign measure that can save parents and baby a lot of trouble in the future. Another interesting one is Group B Streptococcus. Group A is the kind that causes strep throat. However, upwards of 40% of women carry GBS as natural flora of their vagina (and sometimes rectum), which isn’t a problem at all, until a sterile baby with practically no immune system decides to take its first stroll through a corridor full of GBS (not to mention a plethora of other bugs). So, pregnant women get swabbed usually around 36 weeks gestation. If they test positive, they’re put on IV antibiotics during the birth in order to keep baby from a whole mess of problems, the worst of which are sepsis and meningitis. Another simple measure that can prevent so many problems…Sometimes I catch myself wondering just how many people I know wouldn’t be here today if not for modern birthing requirements. And now my mind is wandering to how the population is out of control, so I will stop here.
ReplyDeleteI stopped reading Marlena's comment immediately after "Bacteria in the vaginal canal are an interesting thing!"
ReplyDeleteLOL...Well, you missed out...then again maybe it's a good thing you don't know too much about what goes on "down there"...Guys like mystery right?
ReplyDeleteMar- So is it less healthy then for a kid to be born the normal way? That would contradict the article I read I think. The way I understood it was the baby was better prepared to handle the bacteria of the mother and would be less likely to "get along with" bacteria from strangers.
ReplyDeleteNope! As far as “health” is concerned, I think vaginal births are the bee’s knees as long as all goes well! The vast majority of normal vaginal flora won’t hurt the baby, but instead give it its first dose of the real, dirty world. This is a great thing. Along these same lines, kids with siblings and kids who eat mud pies, etc. tend to be much more robust as adults than their less-exposed counterparts (with allergies and other autoimmune diseases being the main culprits). I think that the only issue is that vaginal birth is risky business. (My mind is wondering to the booming population once again). As far as I can tell, without “modern medicine” a normal vaginal birth can end poorly in enumerable ways…of course, even with modern medicine, horrible things can happen. This is why doctors like to do c-sections. They’re much more predictable and the risk is much, much lower to both mom and baby (and therefore the doctor, because getting sued can’t be fun). However, in my humble opinion, although vaginal births are smelly, slightly barbaric and might just make you faint the first time you see one, c-sections are the stuff of science fiction. They cut you open, squeeze the baby out (head sucker device is optional), take out your giant (for the time being) uterus, plop it onto your stomach, sew it up, stuff it back in then proceed to sew up all the other layers that hold you together in sequence. And you’re awake through the whole thing…but all you can do is hear what’s going on because you can’t feel it and they don’t let you see, not that you’d probably want to do either. Anyway, if you and your baby both survive a vaginal delivery unharmed, I think it’s really quite amazing. I wonder what it would be like if people had photos and blogging and emails for the last ten thousand years…just imagine the kind of stuff we would see and stories we’d read. I think back in the day, people must have had a boatload more respect for childbirth…it wasn’t some whimsical thing that involved Olympic pool-sized birthing tubs and meditation cds. It was life, and quite possibly death. Have you ever wandered through a really old cemetery? They were very descriptive on their headstones back in the day, and I’m always blown away and a little sad to see all the young women who died either during childbirth or within a couple of weeks from complications. A lot of times they have tiny little headstone near hers when the baby didn’t make it either. Once again, another reason I don’t want to be an Ob-Gyn anymore…because when I hear some 17 year old crying about how she wants an epidural because she’s afraid it’s going to hurt, I want to smack her in the head. Yes, it’s going to hurt. You’re going to push a baby out of your vagina…I’m sure your family would appreciate it if you tried to live through it.
ReplyDeleteSide note: Did you know...that bacterial are not teratogenic?! Viruses and protozoa can be, and very much so in certain circumstances, but bacteria don’t cross the placenta and never pick a fight with a baby until those amniotic membranes rupture. Kind of gentlemanly, really!
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