The Microbiome and Your Baby’s Immune System, with Toni Harman

The Birthful Podcast: Episode #102

How your baby is born will determine what microorganisms get where, when. It’s a beautifully orchestrated process with lifelong implications for your baby’s health. So what if you have a cesarean birth, take antibiotics, or are not able to breastfeed? Toni Harman tells us more. Check it out!

What we talked about:

• What is the microbiome?
• Understanding the “seed-and-feed” process
• Changes in the vaginal microbiome during the 3rd trimester
• Why it’s actually amazingly good for you to poop during pushing
• Why sequence of arrival matters
• How the microbiome trains the infant’s immune system
• The increased risk of certain diseases later in life for Cesarean born babies
• Elective vs. emergency Cesareans
• Labor’s apparent effect on epigenetics
• The issues with Cesarean births
• The issues with antibiotics and being GBS+
• Effects of breastfeeding in getting things relatively back on track
• Living a microbiome-friendly life

Additional fabulous resources and articles:

• Your Baby’s Microbiome – get the book
• Microbirth.com  – Toni’s website
• Other films by Toni Harman
• Immune System and the Microbiome, video with Dr. Rodney Dietert (one of the videos from the QR codes inside the book)
• Professor Philip Steer on GBS+
• Group B Strep in Pregnancy: Evidence for Antibiotics and Alternatives, from Evidence Based Birth
• How microbes train our immune system
• Other Birthful episodes on the microbiome:
  • Your Baby’s Microbiome, with Dr. Rodney Dietert (EP #33)
  • Your Pregnancy Microbiome, with Anne Estes (EP # 80)

Courtesy of Toni Harman

[mark]About Toni Harman[/mark]

Toni Harman is a documentary filmmaker turned author. Toni has spent the past 20 years producing and directing films including the documentaries DOULA!, FREEDOM FOR BIRTH and the multi-award winning documentary MICROBIRTH. Her extensive research for MICROBIRTH ignited a passion for the microbiome resulting in Toni co-authoring YOUR BABY’S MICROBIOME with her partner Alex Wakeford.

Find out more at Microbirth.com

*may contain affiliate links. This means that I may get a small percentage of what you buy, and that is one of the ways of helping me continue to do this podcast – Thank you!

Like the music on the podcast?:

Title music: “Vibe Ace” by Kevin MacLeod, from the Free Music Archive / CC BY (edited for length).

Sponsorship music: “Air Hockey Saloon” by Chris Zabriskie, from the Free Music Archive / CC BY (edited for length).