Mosley Gulp of pooh at birth

[Oblomov24]

link

Had anyone seen this? RIP Mosley.

But seriously how can vaginally born children have a gulp of pooh? That can't be right can it? From a biology point of view? No birth child gulps Pooh as they are born.

Cannot read your link but would have assumed that they'd been in distress so meconium in amniotic fluid?

I saw this on instagram as well and thought it can’t be right, can it? The way it’s said is like it’s inevitable and what happens to every baby born vaginally, but mechanically surely a baby born vaginally is unlikely to be anywhere near its mother’s own faeces, barring something going awry…? (Disclaimer, I’m pregnant with DC1 and happy to stand corrected 😄)

I don't remember the full details, but this was quite a big thing when my kids, who are now in their mid-late teens were being born. It's not a massive gulp of actual poo, just being exposed to traces of the mother's faecal and vaginal microbiomes while being born.

Vaginal birth tends to involve a certain amount of shit, either period-style diarrhoea at the start of labour, or when you are pushing, or both. The baby's head will stretch your vagina, and babies tend to come out face down, so close to the anus. And everything will be a bit of a slippery mess of sweat and blood and mucus and yes, traces of poo, and it goes on the baby's skin and the mother's skin when she holds the baby.

I'm assuming that a baby died of an infection it picked up at or around birth? Inhaling meconium is a thing that happens to babies and can be really bad for them. That's why if you've got meconium stained waters you have continuous monitoring and/or other restrictions. But that's not the mothers poo, it's the babies.

It's actually beneficial for babies to not be born in a sterile environment, it seeds their gut with bacteria. Vaginal seeding is something some people do with their C-section babies (a swab is wiped around the mothers vagina and then over the baby's face) but arguably the most important bacteria the baby receives is from the mothers back passage during birth.

It's tragic that a baby has died.

Oh sorry you can not see the link. I'm searching for it elsewhere but haven't found anywhere other than FB yet.

My son was born not breathing because he had aspirated his own meconium. I can’t load the article but assume this may be the same thing? He was given suction and worked on out of my sight and fortunately eventually began to breathe

It's exaggerated for dramatic effect, but yes, the vagina's bacterial "flora" are largely organisms that originated in the mum's bowels, as the two holes aren't that far apart. So when a baby passes through the vagina, it is exposed to them all over its face, in its mouth, etc. That's what Mosley is talking about.

It's a completely different thing from meconium aspiration syndrome, which is when the baby swallows/inhales its own poo during delivery.

The article isn't about a dead or poorly baby at all, just about the benefits of passing on the mother's bacteria to the baby.