Why Do Babies & Children Need Probiotics?

momstown KW Asks Tania: Why Do Babies and Children Need Probiotics?

Probiotic means good bacteria or the literal translation is “for life”. Antibiotic means “against bacteria” or to eradicate life.

When it comes right down to it, probiotics are really just a way to help the digestive tract do what it is supposed to do. This is no less true with infants than it is with older children or with adults. In fact, probiotic use in infants may not only help your infant’s digestive tract, it may provide a variety of other health related benefits.

Probiotics are actually live bacteria. The bacteria in probiotics are the same types of bacteria that normally live in the digestive tract. These bacteria make up what is known as the “gut flora,” which is just a phrase that describes the environment of bacteria and other organisms that exist in the digestive tract. These are beneficial bacteria. These bacteria aid the gut flora in doing its job. They help with digestion. They help to absorb minerals and other sorts of nutrients. They help to synthesize vitamins. They even help to provide something of a barrier against harmful substances.

Why do babies, children and even adults lack this healthy flora in their guts?  Bacteria is passed during labour and birth to your baby, so if Mom has had a history of antibiotics (which kill the bad and good) she may have imbalanced flora. If baby has been in the hospital for a while or is not being breastfed your baby may be a good candidate for probiotic supplementation.  Babies lack a strong immune system for the first three months of life so healthy bacteria help to promote this!

Probiotics can even help to boost the immune system. In all of these ways, probiotics can help your infant’s digestive tract.

In turn, by helping your infant’s digestive tract, probiotics can help your infant in other ways. For example, colic in many babies seems to be related to problems in the digestive tract. By helping your infant’s digestive tract, probiotics may be able to reduce your baby’s crying. In addition to helping with colic, probiotics also can help protect your baby from eczema. In some cases, eczema is caused by a reaction to a food allergy.

In scientific studies, probiotics helped to prevent eczema outbreaks for as much as two years.

The very conservative journal Pediatrics published this year on how probiotics can reduce the duration and severity of Upper respiratory tract infections in 3-5 yr olds. Some of the highlights include: (these are improvements over control)

• 63% reduction of fever
• 54% reduction of cough
• 44% reduction in runny nose -also associated with ear infections
• 80% reduction in antibiotic use. WOW
• sick days reduced  from 6.5 to 3.4. That's a 3 day reduction!! What's a day off work worth?!

There is also a link via some initial studies that show probiotics can help reduce the symptoms of and also help with the severity of ADD and Autism.

Probiotics are naturally occurring in many foods we eat on our planet, however for many many reasons, we who live in North America lack these healthy bacteria in our diets, lifestyles and internal environments.

This article has been modified from: http://www.thelaboroflove.com/articles/how-do-probiotics-help-my-infants-digestive-tract/