Antibiotics after birth affects gut microbes of babies, study finds

TREATING babies with antibiotics in the first week of life is linked with a decrease in healthy bacteria necessary amongst others to digest milk and an increase in antimicrobial resistance, a new study by The University of Edinburgh researchers suggested.

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The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications. Experts say that clinicians should consider using antibiotics in a way that causes the least harm to the newborns microbiome - the community of microbes that live in our body.

Under current guidelines, antibiotics directed at a wide range of bacteria - known as broad-spectrum - are currently prescribed to four to 10 per cent of all newborns for suspected infections.

However, experts say that in most cases the antibiotics are prescribed unnecessarily as only a small proportion of those who receive the drugs are eventually diagnosed with an infection.

This overprescription is to ensure early treatment for those who are ultimately found to have an infection as any delay may quickly become life threatening.

Researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Birmingham, and the Spaarne Hospital and University Medical Centre Utrecht, The Netherlands, conducted a clinical trial involving 227 babies to analyse how antibiotics affect a newborn's microbiome.