If after reading the title you have thought "Gross!", you're not alone. Surely most think the same, that it must be a joke or something similar, because it makes no sense to make you a stool transplant (or poop, to be more direct).
And it is that one transplants important things, usually an organ, or a part, to save life or improve its quality, because the organ itself does not work as it should. But, Poop?
Yes, because intestinal bacteria, what we know as intestinal flora or microbiotaThey have so much to say in the health of people that it is already being done in many hospitals.
What is a stool transplant?
Actually, so that it does not look so bad, the treatment is called fecal microbiota transplant (TMF), which can even be abbreviated in microbiota transplant to avoid saying "poop". As we read in Medline, it consists of getting feces from a healthy donor who has not taken an antibiotic in the last three months (usually a family member or friend), analyzing them to ensure that they do not have any disease, mixing them with a saline solution and filtering them.
Once this is done, it is introduced into the patient's colon through a colonoscope, so that the bacteria in these feces "recolonicize" the patient's intestine, replacing bacteria that cause discomfort with others that do not.
Let's say that, because of antibiotic treatments, in case of irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, the flora of the intestine decomposes, with an increase in bacteria Clostridium difficile. This bacterium, in large quantities (there is no balance with other bacteria) generates a toxin that causes very annoying symptoms, and although in some cases the antibiotic can help, in others it is not enough and the technique of stool transplant It can help restore that lost balance.
And what does this have to do with children?
Surely you will be asking yourself this. Why do they tell us, if this page is about babies and children? Well precisely because all this is related to the intestinal microbiota, that which is different in children according to the birth, the experiences and according to the feeding.
It is known that a baby has a healthier microbiota (with more good bacteria) if:
- It is born vaginally.
- It is born by caesarean section but a gauze previously introduced into the mother's vagina is passed to the baby.
- The baby is not separated from the mother and remains skin to skin.
- The mother has not received an antibiotic during childbirth.
- Live with animals with hair at home.
- It is fed with breast milk.
- He lives in a house where hygiene measures are taken into account but some "dirt" is also allowed.
- The baby does not receive antibiotics in the first months and years of his life.
All these things make a baby have a healthier intestinal flora and, consequently, a greater protection against certain infections and allergies. Obviously, what is important is what matters: if a baby needs to be separated from his mother at birth because he needs medical attention, or in labor the antibiotic is necessary, to give some examples, it is clear that the rest is in a secondary plane.
But if the baby is born healthy, it is important that the highest health agencies continue to fight not only to inform mothers and fathers, but also to the professionals so that they in turn train and recycle, and help women to have less instrumental deliveries, greater confidence in their possibilities when giving birth and breastfeeding, and can provide solutions in case there are problems. And not only that, but be able to transmit this information to couples, so that they give the health of their children the importance it requires.
And if not, it is already known. In the future they can always be done a stool transplant in case it is necessary, in case with those they manage to have a better intestinal microbiota. I assure you that if I needed it for myself, I would.
