The womb isn't sterile – healthy babies are born with bacteria and fungi in their guts

Kent Willis, University of Tennessee

Updated
5:02 pm EDT, Friday, September 13, 2019

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Kent Willis, University of Tennessee

(THE CONVERSATION) For the last hundred years, scientists have believed that humans develop in a womb that remains sterile and completely isolated from the collection of bacteria, fungi and viruses that make us sick when we emerge into the outside world.

This theory was largely based on the fact that it was very difficult to grow live microorganisms collected from this part of the body in the lab – so scientists assumed there weren’t any to find in the womb.

However, recently there have been several



An aerial view of Ni‘ihau and Lehua...

Traditional Hawaiian chants offer several different legends about the formation of the island of Ni‘ihau, but most agree that when Pele, the volcano goddess, came to Hawai‘i, her first home was on Ni‘ihau. She continued to move down the chain of islands to her current home on the island of Hawai‘i, an ancient chronology of events generally supported by modern science although there is geological evidence that Ni‘ihau was formed by a secondary vent after the Kaua‘i volcano began erupting.

After the islands were inhabited by the early Polynesians who voyaged countless miles across the vast Pacific ocean, Kahelelani became the first great ali‘i (chief) of the island of Ni‘ihau. Until today the island is often called Ni‘ihau a Kahelelani, and his name