Michael Pollan wrote [1] about an evolutionary biologist who did this exact thing after his daughter was born via cesarian.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-the...

There is scientific rationale for this, from one of the top medical journals:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.4039

The article addresses this practice and states that the bacteria found in babies born vaginally differs from the bacteria found in the vaginal canal this further calling into question this practice. The bacteria instead seems to come from the mother's gut.

Specifically, it comes from faecal matter that she expels during the birth.

Well, what was known is wrong. The original hypothesis was the bacteria came from the vagina, but this study shows it comes from gut.

This article is about new research that says the source of useful gut flora is not the vaginal canal, but is in fact from faecal matter from the mother.

> This discovery will likely lead to a surge of people intentionally shitting on newborns.

I am doubtful you really believe that, and it's an untasteful joke.

I don't want to google "crunchy Karen" at work...can someone post a description here?

"Crunchy Karen" is a stock character who advocates dubious medical practices and preaches moralizingly, patronizingly to others to do the same.

Where I got the term from is a friend of mine is part of a Facebook support group for women who have particularly unproductive breasts and are tired of being told to risk starving their babies by adopting a breastfeeding-only policy or face moral recriminations.

Yeah, I don't get this. My kids are breast-fed and obviously there's a lot of evidence it's a good idea, but why would I need to shame / bother people who can't do this? It's their loss, if anything.

Others got the Karen part but crunchy comes from "granola parents" who are doing trendy "health" things.

Guessing "crunchy" means something like "prone to like questionable homeopathic practices"

Think long hair, sundresses, sandals, cracked wheat bread, flax seed extract, colonic cleanses, healing crystals, etc.

The story, though, might validate this particular practice.

it pretty much means a modern-day hippie.

idk man, I feel kinda ok with dismissing antivax/essential oils/healing crystals theories. Especially considering how many children got harmed (some to the point of death) by "crunchy karens" who decided that they know better than modern medicine and doctors.

While every topic deserves to be questioned and not dismissed, some have been argued to death already, and I would feel ok with not getting into an argument about the merit of vaccines for a while.

Conflating microbiome interests with antivax mania doesn't make any sense to me, and I agree that "crunchy Karen" is a dismissive sexist tropE, especially in this context. Do any of you have even a passing familiarity with modern microbiome research? It's super fascinating and I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it.

Most of us have heard of it. You can't log into this site and not hear of it. "Gut bacteria" is a square (alongside the likes of "Rust" and "Bitcoin") on my Hackernews bingo card.

But there are scientifically validated treatments and then there's folk medicine of unknown safety and effectiveness, and putting gauze swabbed with vagina juice in your baby's mouth sounds a lot like the latter.

I dunno, after having had a front row seat to more than one vaginal birth I'd say that it's implausible to suggest that microbes aren't being transferred (via "vagina juice" and the proverbial "microbial organ", i.e. poop) from mother to baby. Also, having dabbled in microbial ecology in my professional life, I'd say that it's unlikely that said microbial transfer is inconsequential for the gut health of the baby. Doctors don't know everything, and I'd venture that effectively no research on the effects of a cesarian on the baby's gut health was done before the procedure became widespread.

> Doctors don't know everything, and I'd venture that effectively no research on the effects of a cesarian on the baby's gut health was done before the procedure became widespread.

You’d venture wrong. The initial studies demonstrating flora differences date well over 20 years. It was in fact probably a pop science article in some mass media outlet poorly citing one of those papers that got the ball rolling for this seeding practice in the first place.

And did you bother to read the TfA? As mentioned there is no evidence that the biome is influenced by vaginal flora. So there is absolutely no new support for the value of vaginal seeding.

Doctors may not know everything, but many of us know what we don’t know which is why we don’t recommend seeding. There is no evidence that it works nor that it does any good. This new study only further supports this hypothesis.

Uh, oops, right. I hadn't read tfa.

Oh, I am not dismissing the microbiome research. As evidenced by the comments in this thread, it seems that it is even taught in nursing/med schools. I think the parent just described the type of person who brings it up to doctors, not that this specific technique should be dismissed.

But I would dismiss any non-conventional medical theory from non-educated (in medical field) people, even if it proves to be correct in the future. When the research and appropriate studies are done (and they prove the initial hypothesis), I will gladly switch my opinion.

Last I've read from someone who knew what they are talking about, he said it's still very early and we don't yet know enough to apply treatment level stuff with biomes.

A lot of people are optimistic for the future and there's some useful research available currently such as helping identify certain issues, but it's not yet a serious clinical option being pushed anywhere as far as changing or influencing the biome.

> agree that "crunchy Karen" is a dismissive sexist tropE

So we're not allowed to use labels to draw attention to the fact that the majority of people who believe in [1] and spread information about things like spirituality, crystals, anti-vax, anti-gmo, etc are women?

Often times x-ist tropes are rooted in reality. Dancing around these associations doesn't do anyone any actual good beyond cheap virtue signaling.

1. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/01/new-age-bel...

The only issue I have had with vaccines, I have three daughters, all vaccinated; but I just don’t like how they cram like six vaccines into a single doctor visit.

My middle daughter got the chicken pox vaccine right before we went on vacation to Chicago.

When we got to Chicago, she got the chicken pox actually from the vaccine. I was there for work and wife and daughter were supposed to be fiddling about the city while I worked during the day building the salesforce office.

Instead, they were holed up in the hotel room with calamine lotion and bath stuff to make Madeline comfortable. Since she had the chicken pox, they were only supposed to stay a week in Chicago with me, but had to stay the whole two weeks I was there as she couldn’t fly with the pox....

So when my youngest was due for all her vaccines, they wanted to give all 6 to her at one time.

And as the kids feel really lethargic and crappy for several days after, I made the doctor split the vaccines into only two at a time and made three different visits over two weeks instead of six vaccines in one visit and it was a much better experience for Coraline.

Same here. Our son has gotten all the required vaceenes but we also opted for two at a time max. Aside from being less convenient (2-3x as many visits) he still had all his shots by the time they were needed. Maybe it makes no difference but it certainly seems less taxing overall to the immune system.

This is apparently one of the better-studied questions about immunization, and the verdict is that multiple simultaneous vaccinations does not increase the risk of side effects.

Surely, that depends on how you frame it?

Tossing three coins doesn't increase the odds of any one of them being heads, surely enough. But tossing them at the same time as a single combined trial, instead of just one coin, does increase the odds of at least one heads showing up from 50 to 87.5%.

Of course, you're going to have all those vaccines anyway and so the odds are the same overall for those administrations. Just like it doesn't matter whether we toss three coins at the same time, or weeks apart; the odds are 87.5% we will see a head.

But grandparent has a point about a situation like getting multiple vaccines before travel, where you're making it more likely that side effect will occur during that specific inconvenient time.

Once again, the question of whether multiple simultaneous vaccinations increases adverse effects is well studied, and the verdict is that they do not. It doesn't seem to me like trying to reason to the contrary axiomatically is going to get you anywhere.

I do not sense that you've read my comment critically. Because, for one thing, it says nothing about adverse effects increasing. Rather, the idea proposed is that effects can cluster together in time, without increasing in absolute quantity.

When a vaccine is administered, the probability of some reaction follows some kind of curve that initially rises, and then drops off. If two weeks have passed and no reaction has occurred, then the probability has already fallen off to a long tail that is next to zero.

With me so far?

So now if several vaccines are started at the same time, the "payload" parts of respective curves are superimposed now. If any effects occur, they will almost certainly occur within the next few days or couple of weeks of the administration. And that is the same period for all vaccines in the bunch.

It's almost unimaginable that synchronized start does not create a clustering effect of the probability of adverse effects.

However, in most cases that clustering probably desirable. If the adverse effects are boxed to within the same week for all vaccines, then people will experience less overall "down time" like fewer days off work or school.

Thus, don't have three vaccines just before going on a dream vacation booked months in advance. In fact, maybe don't have any vaccines at all (other than something related to the vacation destination!)

Yeah, you're right, I knee-jerked that reply. Sorry.

My apologies for being combative

This is exactly correct, with one caveat only:

Aside from my daughter getting the chicken pox from the vaccine which is extremely rare, as a parent you observe your child’s reaction to every dr visit and vaccine (ideally) and if you know and can see that these have such put your child into an uncomfortable state or lethargy, then mellow the fuck out.

The doctors don’t give a crap abt how your child feels after they leave their office.... but you as a parent must.

Also, source: my brother is one of the top doctors in the nation. Head of the entire VA for Alaska, commander of the 10th medical wing for the USAF, for personal flight doctor to the joint chiefs of staff at the pentagon. He agrees with me, so armchair all you want.... but I know what the fuck I am talking about.

You are making a different claim than the parent. Their point is that simply from a scheduling perspective, and stipulating some adverse reaction from some vaccine, simultaneous vaccination maximizes the likelihood that you're going to experience that reaction at that specific time.

Your argument is that your kids feel crappy after they're vaccinated... so you get them vaccinated in 3 different stages. No matter what your brother says, the research appears to demonstrate that you're not improving your kid's experience; in fact, it seems like, if the parent comment is right, what you're really doing is maximizing the number of days they'll be uncomfortable, if they happen to have adverse reactions to more than one of the vaccines.

The thing we seem to know from the research is that simultaneous vaccination doesn't tax the immune system in such a way that a reaction to any one vaccine is more likely. Vaccinate all at once, or in 6 separate appointments: the number of reactions will be the same.

Also, the adverse effects won't all simply be additive when superimposed. Using a made up example, suppose Vaccine C by itself would give me a 0.9 degree fever the next day, and Vaccine D a 1.1 degree fever. If I get them together, maybe I will have only a 1.3 degree fever, not a 2.0.

No, I have three daughters.

I paid fucking attention,

So, the one daughter whom had all of her vaccines at once was the only one of the three who had an adverse was one of three...

The other two daughters who had shit split up were not adversely affected

So literally A/B testing my kids.

And to top it off, did you see my comment abt my brother being one of the top doctors in the nation,here is him (and yes I’m going to call you Patrick again just for fun)

This is my brother

https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothy-ballard-md-ms-56312011/

I hav more med creeds if that’s not enough for you

So that’s a test with a sample size of 3. You can not conclude anything meaningful from this. Med creeds aside, if you have any research creeds you’d know this isn’t particularly powerful.

I have a 2nd cousin that is a fantastic doctor. I also happen to be a doctor, like a bunch of others around here. Not to insult your brother in any way, but I’ve never heard of him until now. Also looking on Scopus, while he may be doing great things in the service of the VA, he does not seem to be a researcher.

Edit: also why do you think making a generalization shitting on “the doctors” that “don’t give a crap” to just follow up with an appeal to your brother “the doctor” strengthens what you’re saying in any way? I can assure you most pediatricians do give a crap (appealing to my own years of working with many), and if yours doesn’t I encourage you to find a new one.

I’ll concede to your points, except you saying that my sample size of three is insignificant because they are the only three I need to worry about personally, and so observing them personally individually react to the size of amount injected, with the additional outcome of getting the actual chicken pox due to the vaccine biases me.

Spread across millions, sure, an outlier family, but truth.

Question, Patrick (yes I still call you that)

How many kids do you literally have? Have you taken three different toddlers to get vaccines and observed how miserable they feel over the next week?

No?

Well I have and I don’t give a shut abt those fucking “studies” because I have three humans I have raised and watched how their persons react to many inoculations at one time,

Fuck those “studies”

And recall my brother is one of the top doctors in the nation, and he agrees with me.

I don't understand the "Patrick" thing. My confirmation name is Peter? That's the closest any of my names come to that. The 'P' in my last name is silent.

I have 2 kids.

I really don't care what your brother thinks? Sorry.

Then we need to start studying how to help parents have a better experience when vaccinating their children. The fact is that, as a parent, it's unsettling to watch a doctor pump vial after vial into your kid. Even immediately after birth, I remember there was a big vial they injected into my son. If the patient had been an adult it would have been like injecting an entire tumbler full of serum. There's a bit of a gut punch there, especially if you're like me and generally believe that you were born with pretty much everything you needed to live well and that seeking medical treatment is something you do because you can't otherwise live well.

I'm good with vaccines, but we shouldn't be dismissing the parental perspective. Also, studied side effects probably don't include things like increased agitation, crankiness, lethargy, as side-effects. These things make life miserable for parents for a few days so yeah, parents are going to notice. Of course some parents are going to blame the vaccine when the kid just happened to get a cold at the same time too, but people get the message of "trust your instincts" and then see their kid get sick, and it is the parent that is ultimately responsible for the child's well being and also the one that will be blamed if the child is having a bad day or year.

So yeah, some amount of working with parents would be a good thing.

I don't know. I did it with two kids and it didn't bug me a bit. Really, I felt pretty good about it. It's one of those parenting merit badge moments.

Splitting the vaccines across additional visits sounds terrible for everyone. It’s a much larger time commitment and your kid feels worse for an extended period of time. Your kid also gets more negative doctor experiences.

> I made the doctor split the vaccines into only two at a time and made three different visits over two weeks instead of six vaccines in one visit and it was a much better experience for Coraline.

Of course it was a better experience. Your second didn’t contract chicken pox.

As a parent I can say I am glad the vaccines get done all in one go.