London: A new research has found that bacterial molecules encountered at natural birth could be important for a healthy intestine.
A messy birth could be good for the baby's digestion, according to researchers in Germany, who have found evidence that baby mice squeezing through the birth canal swallow bacterial molecules that help their gut grow healthily. The finding suggests that children born by caesarean method might miss out.
Swarms of friendly bacteria normally live in our gut, and cells lining the intestinal tubes do not attack them. Mathias Hornef at the University Clinic of Freiburg, Germany, and his colleagues, have found that, in mice at least, these intestinal cells 'learn' not to harm the bugs sometime around birth.
The team extracted intestinal cells from mice embryos before birth and exposed them to a component of bacteria. The embryonic cells reacted and produced inflammatory molecules.
But the same gut cells from one-day-old newborn mice or adult mice did not. Somehow, the cells in the more developed mice had learned to ignore the bacterial trigger.
The researchers think that the baby mice swallow bacterial scraps naturally slopping around in the birth canal and mother’s faeces as they make their entry into the world.
These molecules pass down into the gut, where they stimulate the gut cells, a single exposure is enough to teach the cells to tolerate friendly bugs in the future.
In theory, this could mean that the intestines of babies born by caesarean are less welcoming to gut bacteria - perhaps with long-lasting effects for the babies' health. "It's a very interesting speculation," Hornef says.
The results may also have implications for adults with intestinal problems, notes Bruce Vallance from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
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