Mother’s Gut Bacteria Influence Baby’s Brain Development
Everyone wants to know how to optimize a baby’s brain health, but who would have thought that giving mom a probiotic was the answer? Researchers have searched through countless avenues of optimizing baby’s brains, having realized that the critical window of pregnancy and the first year or two of life could determine much of the child’s future cognitive health. Of course, they repeatedly look at new medications on the market for possible adverse effects. However, optimizing baby brain health needs to include positive improvements, not just avoiding negatives, and the researches have identified at least one probiotic that boosted brain health in the mouse study.
With all the growing number of headlines promoting the impact of gut health on the rest of our body, we should not be surprised that it also plays a role here. The thousands of species of bacteria in our colon- which add up to hundreds of billions of individual bacteria- play crucial roles in not only the obvious, digestion, but in our immune health, our adult brain health, our hormonal health, and more.
Beyond the aforementioned issues of adverse drug effects on some pregnancies, we see the statistics on how many babies have a low birth-weight and how many of these children have a lot of health issues as they grow up. With up to 10% of first-time mommies having low birth weight babies, this can be a huge number of adversely affected children growing into symptomatic adults. Mood disorders, autism, and cerebral palsy are higher in these children.
In this study, researchers controlled the microbiome of mice, comparing mice without gut bacteria to mice with Bifidobacerium breve alone. While this is a tightly controlled experiment, they did see several changes in the mice offspring that were encouraging. Metabolic evaluations of the resulting mice brains demonstrated a variety of metabolic biomarkers indicating healthier brains. The research also saw improvements in the structure and function of the placenta which could provide better nutrient delivery to the mice fetus.
While this is just a mouse study, there is hope and expectation that similar findings will be found in humans with other health inducing bacteria. For now, in helping our expecting moms to optimize their babies’ health, we focus on a number of factors, including optimizing the mom’s gut health. We know from other research that mom’s gut microbiome influences their babies post-natal microbiome, but this research indicates that a healthy mommy gut is even more beneficial than that. Helping our patients and their children achieve healthier, more abundant lives requires addressing all the aspects of health including the bacteria in the gut.
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Disclaimer: This content is intended for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or schedule a visit with us to determine what is appropriate for your individual health needs.
Original Article:
Jorge Lopez-Tello et al. Maternal gut Bifidobacterium breve modifies fetal brain metabolism in germ-free mice. Molecular Metabolism, 2024 DOI: 10.1016/j.molmet.2024.102004
Thanks to Science Daily:
University of Cambridge. “Mother’s gut microbiome during pregnancy shapes baby’s brain development.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 20 August 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240820221803.htm>.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
