Listen in as Michelle chats with Toni Harman award-winning documentary filmmaker, author, and digital course creator. Her documentary film, MICROBIRTH has helped parents and professionals around the world understand the infant microbiome. Toni explains what the microbiome is, how it relates to the immune system, and what can be done to protect a baby's microbiome during pregnancy, birth, and early infancy. Together they discuss such things as how a cesarean birth, water birth, a baby born en caul (without the water breaking), breastfeeding, and formula feeding impact the baby's microbiome. Toni also shares how breastmilk is designed to seed and feed the baby's gut microbiome.

"So it's this beautiful, fantastic processes, so like a seed and feed process. So birth provides the seeding of the infant microbiome and then breastmilk provides feeding of the infant microbiome. So the feeding with these special sugars. So seed and feed, and that sets up the immune system and that helps protect a baby's health for life."—Toni Harman

About Toni Harman:

Toni Harman is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, author, and digital course creator. Her documentary MICROBIRTH has been broadcast around the world and her books have been translated into multiple languages. To help childbirth educators better understand the infant microbiome, Toni has created an online school called MICROBIOME COURSES, now with over 35,000 health professionals enrolled as students. Toni has also created MICROBIOME BABY, a new ready-to-use toolkit of evidence-based resources childbirth educators can use to explain the infant microbiome to parents.

Connect with Toni Harman:

Microbiome Courses: Microbiomecourses.com

To teach the science to parents: Microbiomebaby.com

Social media links: @microbiomecourses

FACEBOOK (please join us!): https://www.facebook.com/groups/473121803401844/

INSTAGRAM (please show some love!): https://www.instagram.com/microbiomecourses/

PINTEREST (please save the pin!): https://www.pinterest.co.uk/MicrobiomeCourses/

LINKEDIN (please connect with me): https://www.linkedin.com/in/toniharman/

Connect with Michelle Smith:

Classes with Michelle: birtheaseservices.com/birth-ease-childbirth-education, birtheasehypnobirth.com/hypnobirthing-classes-orlando-michelle

Facebook: Birth Ease, The Birth Ease Podcast

Instagram: @birtheasemichellesmith

YouTube: Birth Ease

LinkedIn: Birth Ease Michelle Smith

Website: BirthEaseServices.com birtheasehypnobirth.com

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!