Back to school: How friendly bacteria can help your child’s immune system

 Around the country, while shopping lists are sure to include new clothes, shoes, lunchboxes, backpacks, paper and pencils, perhaps they should also include friendly bacteria too.

Friendly bacteria are living microorganisms and can be useful in strengthening your child’s digestive balance and supporting a healthy immune system. Adding them to your back-to-school shopping list is well worth considering.

What are friendly bacteria supplements?

Friendly bacteria supplements – which deliver good bacteria or yeast strains to our digestive systems – work to keep our gut microbiota in equilibrium. Our gut microbiota is made up of trillions of organisms including bacteria, viruses, fungi, yeast and protozoa. When things get out of balance from such things as antibiotics, poor diet or even stress, we can experience trouble in our digestive tracts.

What do friendly bacteria

Our gut microbiota changes as we age and grow – and there’s a lot of growing going on in children. As children move from infants to toddlers, to school-aged and then teenagers, they undergo a significant number of physiological changes and their diets also change, along with their activities and sleep habits. All of these transitions are likely to impact their gut microbiota and research studies are increasingly showing that supplemental friendly bacteria are not only safe for children, but also beneficial. Specific bacteria strains are formulated to help children stay healthy through these various stages of development.

Friendly bacteria for a healthy gut

Keeping a healthy balance of bacteria in your child’s digestive system is vital to maintaining their health, because up to 70% of their immune system is found in and around the digestive tract. Ideally, there should be a balance of approximately 80% ‘good’ and neutral bacteria to 20% ‘bad’ bacteria in your child’s digestive tract.

Benefits of maintaining the bacterial balance in your child’s digestive tract could include:

• Immune booster

Friendly bacteria can help support immunity and they do this by creating a favourable environment in the gut where approximately 70% of our immune system lives. 

• Protect from digestive upsets

Back-to-school means back to stress, which can cause digestive upsets such as occasional gas, bloating and diarrhoea. Friendly bacteria can help maintain the digestive balance necessary to avoid these issues. 

• Recover from antibiotics

Antibiotics can wreak havoc on your little one’s digestive balance by destroying both good and bad bacteria indiscriminately.  Friendly bacteria can help you restore your child’s digestive balance after a regimen of antibiotics.

• Nutrient absorption

Friendly bacteria can help facilitate the absorption of nutrients and increase digestive enzymes.

Are all friendly bacteria supplements the same?

The answer is no. It is important to choose a friendly bacteria supplement that contains a specific strain that has been proven to provide the benefits you are looking for whether that is digestive balance or immunity boosting benefits.

Baba West, along with our partners at Probio 7, have conducted a significant amount of clinical research into the strain of friendly bacteria used within Kidskalm (as well as our infant product Bifikalm) and we are confident that the addition of this daily friendly bacteria (Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG) to your child’s diet is a simple and effective way of helping to ensure a healthy gut, a healthy immune system and a healthy child as they return to school.