A special and surprisingly informative substance: According to a study, there is information about its future health development in the first feces of a newborn. If the so-called meconium is poor in certain substances, the intestinal flora of a child develops unfavorably, which in turn is associated with a tendency to develop allergies in the first year of life. Analysis results of a child’s first business could thus enable early measures to be taken to promote a healthy immune system, say the scientists.
It is also called “Kindspech”: In the first 24 to 48 hours after birth, a child excretes a dark green mass as the first form of feces. The meconium is therefore not the end product of food. Instead, it consists of mucosal cells and thickened bile, as well as substances that the unborn child swallowed with the amniotic fluid. Thus the first droppings are fundamentally different from everything that follows.
“Meconium is like a time capsule that reveals the conditions the child was exposed to before it was born,” says Charisse Petersen from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. “It contains a lot of different substances. It can therefore be assumed that they also influence the development of the first intestinal microbes, ”says the scientist. A favorable composition of the intestinal flora in turn plays an important role in the development of a healthy immune system, as is now known from numerous studies.
Searching for traces in the “Kindspech”
Against this background, Petersen and her colleagues have now investigated the question of whether certain properties of the meconium can be linked to later characteristics of a child’s immune system. To do this, they analyzed the ingredients in meconium samples from 100 newborns who took part in the so-called CHILD Cohort Study – a global project to research the health of mothers, newborns and children. This study also recorded various health values from the later development of the 100 children who had provided meconium samples.
“Our analyzes showed that newborns who developed increased allergic sensitivity by one year of age had significantly less ‘abundant’ meconium at birth,” says co-author Brett Finlay of the University of British Columbia. Specifically, it was shown that the fewer different types of molecules a newborn’s meconium contained, the more intensely the children’s immune system later reacted to test allergens.
By examining the children’s intestinal flora in the months after birth, the researchers were also able to show that a deficiency in certain substances in the meconium was linked to changes in important groups of bacteria. These microbes play a crucial role in the development and maturation of a healthy ecosystem in the gut, the scientists explain. “The study thus shows that the development of a healthy immune system and a well-balanced intestinal flora begins long before a child is born. It becomes clear that the tiny molecules to which a baby is exposed in the womb play a fundamental role in its future health, ”summarizes Petersen.
Findings with potential
As part of their study, the scientists have already shown that there is medical potential in the analysis of meconium: Using a machine learning algorithm, the researchers combined meconium, microbial and clinical data to develop a prediction system. They eventually managed to predict with a high degree of accuracy whether or not an infant will develop allergies by the age of one year. The results of the study are therefore important for the protection of particularly vulnerable newborns, say the scientists.
“We know that children with allergies are at the highest risk of developing asthma later in life. Now there is an opportunity to identify at-risk newborns who could benefit from early intervention before they develop signs and symptoms of allergies or asthma, “says University of British Columbia co-author Stuart Turvey and co-director of CHILD international Cohort Study.
Source: University of British Columbia, Article: Cell Reports Medicine, doi: 10.1016 / j.xcrm.2021.100260