Having a kid changes everything, from your sleep…

Having a kid changes everything, from your sleep schedule to the status of that formerly spare room. The stable of bacteria that live in a woman's gut is also transformed when their host becomes 1. So finds research in the journal Cell. The study looked at women in Finland. The women's microbial makeup changed 2 between the first and third trimesters. The array of microbes in the gut went from looking normal in the first three months of a pregnancy to resembling what's found in patients 3 from metabolic disease in the last three. But some of the symptoms of that condition—like weight-gain and slower sugar metabolism— can be 4 to pregnant women, supporting energy storage that helps a fetus develop. Other symptoms, like inflammation, 5 that the immune system is 6 properly as a pregnancy comes to term. Scientists don't yet fully understand what brings about the changes in gut bacteria—immune function is a suspect, but factors like hormonal 7 aren't ruled out. The research suggests that other changes to the body, like puberty or old age, could also bring about microbial makeovers.