London - Pregnant women who take antibiotics could be putting their unborn children at risk of disease. Researchers have found that drugs used to beat infections can interfere with a baby’s immune system.
By contrast mothers can help to kick-start a child’s ability to avoid illness by passing on certain germs.
A study by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in the US showed that bacteria in the gut play a crucial role in fostering the rapid production of infection-fighting white blood cells.
They found that, as with humans, mice have a surge of white blood cells around birth, but this response is reduced when their mothers are exposed to antibiotics.
This left the creatures much more vulnerable to deadly E. coli infections, especially when they were born prematurely.
The researchers showed that signalling mechanisms within the gut’s vast colony of micro-organisms regulate the production of white blood cells in baby mice.
Exposing both the mothers and babies to antibiotics reduced the diversity of gut bacteria, many of which are beneficial, and also impaired resistance to infection in the newborn.
Critically ill babies are often treated with antibiotics as a precaution, without proof of infection. The study appeared in the journal Nature Medicine. - Daily Mail