Like most mothers, I’m very picky about what I allow into my home that might affect my children, and how it will shape their future health.

And like most mothers, I imagine this has made me very suspicious and cynical… Health advice seems very dubious these days, and every time I log on to the internet or turn on the news, I feel like I find another article about how something I thought I was doing right is actually wrong, and something that I thought was wrong is actually right. I feel like my children are guinea pigs, and science is moving a lot faster than parenting… I’m all for scientific advancement, but when my kids are whining that they’re hungry, it would be nice to consistently have the right answer for what to feed them!

Well a friend turned me on to probiotics… That is the friendly bacteria that live in our digestive system and fight the bad bacteria. Which is a little interesting, a little disgusting, but when you think about it- Everything you eat goes through your digestion before it goes anywhere else, so it makes a lot of sense.

Naturally, before I committed to doing anything with probiotics, I did some research, and that’s how I found The Good Gut by Doctors Justin and Erica Sonnenburg, PhDs.

The Sonnenburgs, in addition to being doctors, are parents of two little girls, and they had some interesting advice in terms of not just pediatrics, but actual parenting as well.

I should start by saying that the book is very smart. The authors are after all, medical professionals. But it doesn’t drown me in medical jargon I don’t understand. My experience with these kind of books is that typically, they start talking like normal people, and then slide back into science stuff and then lose me. I didn’t have that problem with this book, it was actually full of interesting and useful advice.

Advice like feeding your kids adult food from the start- This seems so simple, it makes you feel stupid, but it really is a great idea. Every mother knows there’s a horrible time in a child’s life where they learn the word “no” and suddenly they become picky about everything.

Naturally, what they really want is kid food, full of sugar and food coloring, but as a parent you know that’s not a wonderful idea. How did the Sonnenburgs handle their children’s health during these picky no-no times?

Easy, they have no sugary kid food in their home! Imagine it like having a dog… Your dog eats the same bowl of dry food every day, and he loves it, because he’s a dog and he doesn’t know about any other kind of food. So if you raise your kids on adult food, and never introduce them to sugary garbage, you’ll never have to later go through the struggle of weaning them off of it! That’s simple advice I could use.

Now as far as the probiotics are concerned, things get really interesting. The Sonnenburgs argue that in our age of disinfectants and antibiotics, we do a great deal of harm to ourselves and our children by losing opportunities to toughen up our immune systems- If a child doesn’t come into contact with enough friendly (and even not so friendly) microbes when they’re young, then they could grow up with weak, ineffective digestive and immune systems… And according to these doctors, 60% of the immune system is in the gut.

It’s not as obvious as just letting your kids roll around in the dirt without washing their hands when they come in for supper. Of course there’s some common sense involved. But they raise interesting points about the world our children are born into, and what their first contact with microbes really are.

To reinforce the point, Dr. Sonnenburg explains that the first microbes that ever touch your child are the ones in your sex. As you give birth to your child, they are colonized as they pass through your birth canal, and the microbes that keep your sex healthy are now protecting your child. A little queasy to think about at first, but true, and very beneficial to the child’s future health. Children born by C-section don’t get those motherly microbe first responders. It’s interesting to think about.

The book is also full of great diet advice for fostering probiotics and digestive health- I already talked about the great advice regarding children and adult food, but just as importantly, the Sonnenburgs don’t create a list of unattainable, impossible to find diet foods only available in specialty health food stores. Everything they recommended was in very simple, very ‘eatable’ food, which I was thankful for.

I guess, at the end of this blog post, what I want to say is that this book did a very good job of educating me on the many benefits of probiotics and building a strong future of health and immunity for my family. I have taken the Sonnnenburg’s advice to heart, and now use probiotic products and a probiotic-friendly diet in my home. I believe it has made a positive impact.