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Meconium, which is usually expelled on the first day of life, is composed of a series of materials ingested and excreted during development, ranging from skin cells and amniotic fluid to various molecules known as metabolites.
Meconium, that is, the baby's first stool, can help predict the risk of developing allergies, according to a new study published in the journal 'Cell Reports Medicine', by a team of researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC). , in Canada.
Research has shown that the composition of a baby's first poop - a thick, dark green substance known as meconium - is linked to whether or not the child develops allergies during the first year of life.
"Our analysis revealed that newborns who developed allergic sensitization at one year of age had significantly less "rich" meconium at birth, compared to those who did not develop allergic sensitization," explains the study's co-senior author, Dr. Brett Finlay, professor at the Michael Smith Laboratories and the departments of biochemistry and molecular biology, and microbiology and immunology at UBC.
The meconium, which usually expelled on the first day of life, is composed of a series of materials ingested and excreted during development, ranging from skin cells, amniotic fluid, and various molecules known as metabolites.
"The meconium It's like a time capsule, which reveals what the baby was exposed to before birth. "It contains all kinds of molecules found and accumulated by the mother while she was in the womb, and then becomes the initial food source for the first intestinal microbes," says the study's lead author, Dr. Charisse Petersen, a research associate in the department. of Pediatrics at UBC.
As part of the study, researchers analyzed meconium samples from 100 babies enrolled in the CHILD Cohort Study (CHILD), a world-leading birth cohort study in maternal, neonatal and child health research.
They found that the fewer different types of molecules a baby's meconium contained, the greater the risk of the child developing allergies at one year. They also discovered that The reduction of certain molecules was associated with changes in key bacterial groups. These groups of bacteria play a critical role in the development and maturation of a vast ecosystem of gut microbes, known as the microbiota, which is a powerful agent of health and disease.
