When can I take my baby out?
I often see the teeny-tiny newborn’s in shopping
malls and I have to resist the urge to make a fuss over them, firstly because
I know Mom is protective as a she-bear, and secondly, my person is abuzz with
bacteria, viruses and even fungi that could be potentially harmful to a
new-born still colonizing microorganisms. In other words, developing their immune system.
I’m often asked
when it’s safe to take the baby out for the first time and I like to caution new
mothers to avoid people-busy places like malls, church services and even
birthday parties for the first four weeks – especially if her baby was born by
c-section, was premature and is not breast-fed.
Here’s why.
Newborns have an
under-developed immune system. This is because, for the first nine months of
life, they were protected by their mother’s immune system, the placenta and her
cervix (the doorway to her womb). A baby’s first introduction to microbes and
bacteria is through the vagina – and providing the mother is clean and healthy,
these ‘harmless’ bacteria help to jump-start the baby’s immune system.
Babies born by
c-section don’t have this advantage.
Immediately
after birth, a healthy baby is put skin-to-skin between the mother’s
breasts. Here the baby is comforted by her smell, the sound of her voice and
heart-beat and her body warmth. Over and above this, healthy microbes on mom’s
skin are transferred to her baby through suckling, introducing these organisms
to her baby’s gut where healthy bacteria are essential for digesting and
absorbing nutrients.
Premature babies
are more at risk because they miss out on the last few weeks (even months) of
developmental maturity, they’re mostly born by c-section and often put onto
antibiotics. This is when kangaroo-mother-care is a big plus and expressed
breast-milk (EBM) is a must.
Luckily, babies
are incredibly adaptable and within a few short weeks, they’re colonizing
microorganisms by the billion. By the time babies are crawling and exposed to
dirt on the floor, the dog’s food, and garden snails, their gut microbiota is
able to cope with and eliminate most germs.
According to neonatologist Nicholas
Embleton, at Newcastle University, UK, “by the age of two or three, the
composition of a child’s gut microbiota is very similar to that of an adult’s,”
which means, they have a healthy immune
system, making it pretty difficult for disease-causing microbes to make them sick.
Photo from "UNSPLASH"
