In the first thousand days, proper brain growth depends on a healthy microbiota.

As a spanking new baby, you are completely defenseless against the dangerous pathogens in the world. Your mother’s beneficial microbes—delivered by vaginal bacteria, breast milk, and even kisses—are designed to protect you against that onslaught by kick-starting your very own microbiota.

Mother’s milk is a wonderful substance that includes prebiotics, probiotics and even a rudimentary immune system to get you and your gut microbiota underway. Milk is a favorite food of bacteria like Bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus. If those sound familiar, it’s because they are the most prominent microbes in yogurt. With all that milk, your colon acts a lot like a yogurt maker. These bacteria eat the complex sugars in breast milk and create substances like butyrate which is ambrosia to the cells lining your gut. This keeps you in the pink of health and prevents pathogens from getting anywhere near your delicate gut lining.

Clearly, your microbiota is a good thing, but how does it all work?

Read more here.