It takes guts (flora)!

Posted by: Jaime 

Towards the end of 2013 I started taking an interest in gut flora and its relationship to general health (mainly due to the fact that my skin has never been great and I want to finally get to the bottom of what is causing it). But when the Monkey got put on a course of antibiotics to clear up what the hospital thought was an infection (it wasn’t, it was a stomach virus), and already knowing antibiotics weren’t great for gut flora, we had to do some extra research to find out how we could help his gut flora recover.

Now, I’m really no expert and still learning about the subject myself, but very basically gut flora is very important for human health, especially in relation to autoimmune diseases, and antibiotics can have a serious impact on gut flora and, therefore, a person's health.

Avocado yogurt with extra probiotics

‘By altering the gut microbiota, and thus the immune system very early in life, the antibiotics could negatively influence long-term health, particularly by boosting the risk of developing asthma, allergy, and obesity, according to the report. The risk is heightened by the fact that the antibiotic-driven disruption of the microbiota comes at a time "when this population is in rapid flux and can easily be unbalanced," according to the report.’

(Source)

(To avoid me essentially rewriting information from people far more in the know than I, there is a whole host of information online explaining this subject, including here, here and here, with a very recent one here)

So, what to do? Thankfully our good doctor prescribed some probiotics drops straight away, and we have decided to continue adding probiotics to the Veggie Baby's diet for the foreseeable future. We are currently trying ‘Udo`s Choice Infant`s Blend Microbiotics’, although with the package having only just arrived we are too early to say if the Veggie Baby will take to this being added to his juice/milk/yogurt.

In the long term I am hoping to introduce more cultured and fermented foods into our diet, so we are not supplement dependent. This is my bible on fermentation and I’m sure that I'll have my head buried in for some time to come!

(Some great articles on fermentation and gut flora here and here)

NB – We are not signed up to affiliate marketing of any product/site and so all links are for information purposes only; we receive no financial reward for recommending anything.

A long two weeks

Being ill isn't fun at the best of times. Let alone when you're only eleven months old and can't really say what's wrong. A tough tummy bug meant flat out food refusal. Milk was all that may or may not be accepted.

But after various doctors visits, and different meds, there seems to be an improvement.

The Monkey is still taking probiotic drops (will add a section in links and resources with names and photos soon) and we have also ordered some further probiotics for longterm usage. Hopefully his gut flora can soon be flourishing again and keep him a healthy little thing.

At the height of his tummy bug the only thing he did like eating were these: Mogli Pizza Sticks. Strictly speaking they are probably only from 12+ months, but we were happy for him to munch on anything at all.

organic pizza sticks

Weightloss

The last weighing at the doctors showed that he had lost weight. Only 270grams, but given that the last weighing had been a month prior (and therefor he would have weighed a fair amount more already) it probably added up to a good half kilo. Not good. He is down to the 63rd percentile.

Fattening the baby

Whenever we can we mix some avocado under or add extra baby rice / millet etc under his yoghurt. At the moment we go by: 'anything goes' and he gets what he wants. Luckily we still count some greens to what he does eat.

Mixed berries and yoghurt

On the road to recovery

With the Monkey getting better he is also starting to get his appetite back. What a happy sight! After lots of listless lying around on the floor it is great seeing our veggie baby back to goofing around with his plate.

We made scrambled tofu. Although I had a recipe I just went freestyle with the amounts. I knew he wouldn't eat a whole portion so just made it a rough size: some silken tofu (squeeze the water out as much as you can). Some green asparagus tips (ours were from frozen), a pinch of turmeric (meant to be anti inflammatory), a teeeeny bit of salt, olive oil, and (although this makes an otherwise vegan recipe vegetarian) a dollop of cream cheese. You can add whatever else feels nice: onion, perhaps a little bit of leek...

What a relief when he ate. And eat he did. He messed, he played, it went into his mouth, it got chewed and swallowed.

the veggie baby is BACK!

Let's hope we are now on the road to recovery and can get back to cooking.

We are extending the blog

Having a sick child made us think about lots of things, from food to co-sleeping to general child rearing questions. Plus a few of my friends are currently pregnant with their first child and don't quite know how to start easing into the topic of having a family. They asked for advice on what worked for us and what didn't. And although we are very aware that child rearing is a hugely personal journey,and unsolicited advice is the most annoying thing that comes with having children, if anything we have learned can be helpful then we are happy to share.

So, we may start using this blog to share more of our experiences, more of which products we found useful (from probiotics to good nappy creams), which books we have read (nutrition but also about babies and general tips) and so on.

A sick Monkey Or Lucky after all

Oh no!

The time has come that every first time parent dreads: Our child is ill. What do we do?

The Monkey has had a cold for a while, which seemed to be clearing off and hasn't been a big deal. However, there was a tiny bit of bloody wee in his nappy, indicating a urine infection. Sadly the first hospital we went to didn't do a thorough job and sent us home, more or less along the lines of: all is well. Unfortunately the long wait of three hours next to a teenager with a tummy bug who was throwing up in the waiting area was going to come back to bite us in the butt. Or was it?

All wasn't well as became apparent roughly one and a half days later when the veggie baby started vomiting in the night. I shall not go into detail of the long drive and long night we had following his being unwell. The long and short of it is that he has some sort of bug which causes vomiting and diarrhoea. However, had the Monkey not got this bug, we wouldn't have gone to a (different) hospital where he was not only treated for his bug, but also diagnosed the urine infection, which was missed at the last hospital and could have caused a lot of damage if left untreated as the bacteria can travel up into the renal area and affect the kidneys. Lucky after all! Yes, I am trying to look on the bright side.

Now what?

A course of seven days worth of antibiotics is now making its way through the veggie baby's gut flora. Sure, it has to be that way to get rid of the urine infection. But it means we need to do everything we can to build up his gut bacteria again. After all a healthy intestine often is key to good overall health.

Millions of bacteria

We will be adding half a probiotic capsule to his breakfast (in addition to lots of live yoghurt) and his dinner to keep the damage under control. When we have researched some more into which probiotics might be particularly good I will write a little post about that. For now we are keeping our fingers crossed that the tummy bug passes, that the antibiotic does the trick, and that our efforts of keeping our baby healthy will be successful.