Mother's antibacterial soap use may affect baby's gut bacteria

The use of a common non- prescription antimicrobial soap during pregnancy and breast- feeding may alter the offspring's composition of intestinal bacteria and other micro-organisms, called the gut microbiota, according to a new study.
The gut microbiota contains both beneficial and harmful microbes and changes in its normal composition are linked to diseases including obesity, diabetes, irritable bowel disease, colon cancer, multiple sclerosis and asthma.
Triclocarban (TCC) is frequently added to anti-bacterial bar soap. Many anti-bacterial personal care products are commonly used during pregnancy and by nursing women to protect against infectious disease, researchers said.
"Our research adds to the growing body of scientific literature suggesting unintended health consequences related to nonprescription antimicrobial use and will allow pregnant and nursing mothers to make informed decisions regarding use of these antimicrobial products," said Rebekah Kennedy from University of Tennessee in the US.

For the study, researchers fed female rats chow supplemented with TCC throughout pregnancy and a 16-day nursing period after the rat pups were born.
They collected fecal samples from the maternal rats during pregnancy and nursing. From the nursing pups, they collected the contents of the cecum, an area connecting the small and large intestines that typically undergoes sampling in animal models to test the gut microbiota.

Researchers then performed DNA sequencing of the gut microbiota from the collected samples. They compared the results with gut microbiota analysis of rats and their pups that were not exposed to TCC.
Compared with unexposed rats, TCC exposure led to a reduced average number of microbial taxa present in each sample among mother rats and pups, researchers found.

By postnatal day 16, the pups exposed to TCC had a significantly different composition of gut microbiota from that of unexposed pups. Those differences became noticeable starting at day 12, researchers said.
"The ability of TCC antimicrobial exposure to change the composition of the microbial community warrants future investigation to determine the health outcomes resulting from TCC exposure during sensitive windows of prenatal development and early life," said Kennedy.