thought provoking...

[Ruth Walker]

I read an article in DP's copy of New Scientist a couple of weeks ago which said that it had been found that a baby's gut is colonised by bacteria whilst it is in the womb, in other words the mother causes it to have the microbial balance in the gut that it is born with. The same article also quoted this research http://pharmig.blogspot.co.uk/2012/0...ence-mood.html which suggests that our mood and behaviour could be influenced by our gut bacteria. The article did not discuss IVF and donor eggs but when I read the article I couldn't help thinking that if the behavioural influence of gut bacteria is true in humans then it would surely mean that women who have babies using donor eggs actually influence the mood and behaviour that their children will have when they are born, by virtue of sharing their own microbes with them in the womb, and so effectively a donor egg baby could (perhaps) 'inherit' the personality of the woman who gives birth to it by virtue of inheriting her gut bacteria, even though the baby does not have the woman's DNA.