2023-10-02 10:10:46
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Covid-19: the collateral effects of confinement on the microbiota of children
Children born during lockdowns, imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic, might be at risk of developing allergies, eczema, and even developmental disorders. The reason is their microbiota, which is different from that of others!
We are not born with an intestinal microbiota, we acquire it during the first months of our life, through food, but also through contact with the numerous microbes that we encounter in our environment. However, being born in full confinement linked to Covid might well have disrupted this acquisition. This is explained in a recent article by Nature, which presents the different research carried out on the intestinal microbiota of babies born during confinement measures implemented during the pandemic.
First of all, a study carried out by New York University, during the first nine months of the pandemic, among twenty newborns showed that the latter presented a less microbial diversity than those born before containment measures. This suggests that confinement measures, by limiting the contact of these newborns with the numerous bacteria present in the environment, have disrupted the formation of their intestinal microbiota.
Another study, from Ireland, more precisely analyzed the intestinal microbial populations of babies born in Dublin, during confinement. This study finds that at the age of 12 months these children have a microbiota richer in bifidobacteria than others, which the authors explain by the fact that, due to confinement, they were more likely to be breastfed and were less likely to contract an infection requiring treatment with antibiotics (great destroyers of bifidobacteria). On the other hand, their microbiota contains fewer Clostridia bacteria. Here once more, it is logical: these bacteria are acquired in particular in public squares, stores, nurseries and other places where children are in contact with each other!
What effects on health?
But the Irish team observed in these children a higher prevalence of allergies or eczema… And, more generally, given the probable links that exist between the intestine and the brain (although few articles in the scientific literature establish this link with certainty), researchers suspect these imbalances of being able to influence cognitive development. The article from Nature cites, in support of this idea, another observational study which revealed a greater frequency of communication disorders in infants born during the pandemic (although the origin of these disorders may be linked to other specificities of confinement).
If the article insists on the fact that the small size of the samples studied limits the generalization of the results, it also reports the comments of researchers, now wishing to study more particularly the cognitive development of infants born during confinement. To be continued…
Bibliographic references 
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