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As moms, you’d do anything to keep your baby safe. But, sometimes in your zest to get your little one back to normal, you opt for medications to settle him and make him feel well.
A recent study has hinted at the possibility of babies who were given antibiotics going on to become obese later in life. You’re probably scratching your head wondering how a medicine that you gave your child today will affect him later in life. The answer is rather straightforward, according to a 2014 study.
For this particular study, the researchers recorded the effects of penicillin on mice. Initial studies hinted that the problem wasn’t penicillin, but its proclivity to destroy certain healthy bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract, which could lead to future problems. The “microbiome” disruption in the first month of life, resulted in a 25% increase in weight for the mice.
According to Dr. Martin Blaser of NYU, who led the study on penicillin’s effects, the results claimed that children who had antibiotics before they were six-months-old had a higher chance of turning obese by the age of seven, than their counterparts who didn’t have antibiotics as babies. Blaser maintains that penicillin has a dedicated “window of time” (roughly between six months and three years of age) when its effects can damage healthy bacteria in the stomach.
A human stomach houses around 100 trillion bacteria. Some of these bacteria are the healthy microbes, which promote digestion and normal functioning of the stomach.
The results of the study have fueled debate among parents, and the question now is whether sick babies should be given any antibiotics at all. Dr. Naveed Sattar of Glasgow University doesn’t seem to think so. “Antibiotics in children or newborns should be given according to clinical needs whereas the usual advice about lifestyle remains the most important means to tackle obesity.”
Dr. Blaser agrees, but only to a certain limit. According to him, “If a kid is very ill, there is no question that they should get antibiotics, but if it’s marginal, perhaps the doctor should be saying, ‘Let’s wait a day or two’ before taking another look. Doctors give out antibiotics thinking they won’t do any harm, but this provides evidence that they might.”
Principal Research Officer at the Teagasc Food Research Centre, Dr. Paul Cotter feels that “The study on mice may well provide critical insights for humans as previous studies observed that early life exposure to antibiotics can affect weight gain later in life”.
Another fallout of early life exposure to antibiotics is antibiotic-resistance. The US president sanctioned an order, a part of which reads, “Controlling the development and spread of antibiotic resistance is a top national security and public health priority.”
Antibiotic-resistant infections lead to 23,000 deaths and two million illnesses in the US each year.
