Abstract

Childbearing and infant care practices have dramatically evolved since the 15th century. Shifting away from traditional home-based experiences, with the emergence of the microbial aware era and the hospital as a quintessential sanitizing machine, early life has now long been characterized as a condition to be medically managed. Paradoxically, this ‘germ-free’ march towards a healthier early life environment has opened the door to greater microbial susceptibility and dysbiosis. Many studies have now established that infant exposure to excessive sanitation and hygiene regimens are associated with an increased risk for and onset of childhood immune system diseases. In this paper, we explore the ways in which biomedical-centered efforts to enhance early life have come at a cost to planetary health, in relation to infant microbial succession. We examine three major areas of early life that have been subject to the ‘ripple effect’ of hygiene and sanitation concerns—childbirth, home environment, and breastfeeding.

Details

Title
Sanitization of Early Life and Microbial Dysbiosis
Author
Jun, Shelly 1 ; Drall, Kelsea 2 ; Matenchuk, Brittany 2 ; McLean, Cara 3 ; Nielsen, Charlene 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Obiakor, Chinwe V 4 ; van der Leek, Aaron 2 ; Kozyrskyj, Anita 5 

 Department of Surgery, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G2R3, Canada 
 Department of Pediatrics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G2R3, Canada 
 Department of Pediatrics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G2R3, Canada; Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G2R3, Canada 
 School of Public Health, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G2R3, Canada 
 Department of Pediatrics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G2R3, Canada; Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G2R3, Canada; School of Public Health, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G2R3, Canada 
First page
43
Publication year
2018
Publication date
2018
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
20781547
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2582796516
Copyright
© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.