The importance of poo during childbirth
I remember the shock of seeing poo at my first birth.
I was making a film about doulas and I was going along to film my first home birth.
The birth was wonderful to witness. It was truly peaceful, beautiful, joyful and empowering. The experience literally changed my life. If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have known that is what birth could be like!
There was a tiny bit of poo — which came out near the final push.
I remember thinking at the time, no-one is mentioning the poo. The poo was quickly swiped away by the attending midwife.
Fast-forward to a month later, I was filming at another birth, a home water birth and this time, there was quite a lot of poo in the pool. Again, the midwife scooped up the poo. No fuss. No-one mentioned it.
The next birth. Much much more poo. I remember being squeezed into the corner, the video camera pointing straight up at the mother’s bum. I was expecting a baby’s head to come out, but instead out came a large poo, right up close heading towards the camera lens. The poo was wiped away. No fuss. No-one mentioned it.
We started filming “60 second doulas”. It was a very simple idea, like a game-show. 3 doulas pull a question about birth from a sparkly envelope. The doulas have 60 seconds to answer the question.
One of the first questions we filmed was “What if a mother poos herself?”
The doulas answered it brilliantly saying that it’s perfectly natural, that the midwife just wipes away the poo. There’s no fuss. There’s no mention of the poo afterwards.
By then I had been at multiple births and all of them were poo-ey. In my very limited experience, it seemed to me most mums poo themselves during vaginal birth. It’s just part of the process. As the doulas had said, it was just a normal natural thing that almost always happens.
And that makes total sense.
Physiologically, during vaginal birth, the baby is very likely to come into contact with the mum’s fecal matter.
In most vaginal births, the baby comes out of the mum’s vagina facing the anus. This means the baby can get a quick lick of the mum’s anus, and probably a quick lick of any poo around the perineum on “the way out.”
If the baby is brought directly onto the mum’s chest/abdomen, the baby is likely to do a skin crawl up to the nipple. As he or she crawls, the baby licks, nuzzles, sucks and swallows — all the time sucking up the mum’s vaginal and fecal juices.
Science is showing these beneficial microbes transferred from the mum during birth and breastfeeding get swallowed and go down to the baby’s gut.
Inside the baby’s gut, the beneficial microbes transferred from the mum are fed by the special sugars (human milk oligosaccharides) in breast milk. These HMO sugars feed the beneficial microbes so that they quickly grow and colonise the infant gut.
They helps infant immune system training. This helps ensure the right microbes are present in the right order and at the right time to optimally train the infant immune system. This helps protect a baby for life.
Mums do poo themselves during vaginal birth. Births are messy — and that’s a normal natural and “usually” an amazing thing!
Indeed, recently for babies that need to be born by C-section, scientists have discovered that exposure to mother’s fecal matter may help their health.
In a small proof of concept study from Finland, scientists mixed a tiny sample of the mother’s poo with her breast milk and fed the “fecal milkshake” to the baby.
The study found that the microbiome of a baby born by C-section resembled the microbiome of a baby born vaginally. This is not yet a recommended procedure. More research is needed, and please don’t try this at home as there are risks involved. But wow, if the results are repeated in a larger study — this could be a game-changer!
There is a caveat. I say the natural messiness is “usually” an amazing thing because yes, there is a risk of pathogens being present in the mother’s gut, which could be present in the mother’s poo. One of those potential pathogens is group B Strep (GBS). In many countries, mothers are tested at weeks 35–37 weeks’ gestation for the presence of group B Strep. If GBS is present in the mother’s poo and is passed on to the baby, there is a very small chance that the baby could develop a serious infection — so it’s good to be mindful of the risks.
If you are lucky enough to be present at a birth and you see poo — it’s not something to be feared.
Instead of watching the poo being wiped away with no fuss, maybe take a moment to appreciate and reflect upon the poo. Remember the mother’s poo has an important role to play in the lifelong health of the baby, and perhaps we all need to be more mindful of its power!
Scientific reference:
Korpela K, Helve O, Kolho KL, Saisto T, Skogberg K, Dikareva E, Stefanovic V, Salonen A, Andersson S, de Vos WM. Maternal Fecal Microbiota Transplantation in Cesarean-Born Infants Rapidly Restores Normal Gut Microbial Development: A Proof-of-Concept Study. Cell. 2020 Oct 15;183(2):324–334.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.08.047. Epub 2020 Oct 1. PMID: 33007265. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)31089-8
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