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When you’re pregnant and you get sick, your OB/GYN has to look carefully at the risks and benefits of prescribing antibiotics. New research from the Winnipeg lab of Jean-Eric Ghia promises to change the ways OBs measure these risks and benefits.
His work has shown that antibiotics during pregnancy increase newborns? susceptibility to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) by reducing their gut microbial diversity at a critical stage of development.
Ghia, an assistant professor and director of gastrointestinal basic biology research at the University of Manitoba?s IBD Clinical & Research Centre, explains his research in this Q&A.
Q: What does your new research show"
It shows that antibiotics given during pregnancy (in mice) affect the microbial composition of the newborn intestine and reduce the microbial diversity. As a result of that, the infant has a greater susceptibility to gastrointestinal diseases later in childhood. The findings show that reducing intestinal microbial diversity has implications for the maturation of the immune system and risk of a number of conditions such as asthma, diabetes and autism, but also of ulcerative colitis. Q: What is novel here"
Research shows that antibiotic use in the immediate period after birth can severely alter gut microbiota in infants, and evidence from long-term studies suggests that these effects could last for months, if not years. Our new research shows that indirect exposure is also relevant...