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Very interesting. That never occurred to me - either the proximal deposition of a bit of fecal material on the newborn or that it was good for the newborn. That is amazing.

Depending on who you ask, there is either a rough parity between the number (not by mass or volume, but simple count) of bacterial cells and human cells in a human body or an outright excess of bacterial cells.

In that regard, it's no surprise that getting the "right" mix of bacteria is important for an infant. It's just something we haven't historically examined terribly closely, because natural birth and breastfeeding inoculate the infant automatically with the mother's (usually) healthy balance of microbes, so no reason to take notice. But with more and more C-sections and formula-fed infants, it's starting to matter more.

One of the beauties of a "healthy" mix of bacteria is that they tend to suppress the pathogenic bacteria via simple competition as well, which is why 40% of mothers having "bad" bacteria doesn't automatically translate to 40% of infants starting life with bad infections- the baddies get crowded out.

We live in a beautiful world...