5 Post-Antibiotic Gut Healing Tips for Kids

Written By Caitlin Deems

We all know that antibiotics don’t just kill the bad bacteria, they kill the good bacteria too! And in a perfect world, our children’s guts would repopulate all that good stuff with resiliency… but our world is far from perfect. Seed oils, fried foods, and processed sugars are just a few things that make our children’s health less resilient. Not to mention multiple rounds of antibiotics.

This is why we need to jump start that gut healing process after our kids take antibiotics.

Personally, we have lived with what happens when you don’t… my son was fed what most would consider a “healthy” supermarket diet. No juice or candy. Multivitamins. And two rounds of antibiotics before the age of 2. While there were other factors that led to his leaky gut and dysbiosis (imbalance of good and bad microbes in the gut), I know the antibiotics were a big part of it! Insomnia, constipation, explosive behavior, skin issues, etc. were the result. Each child will exhibit leaky gut differently, and sometimes it’s hard to spot. But our lives were pretty dysfunctional because of it. After a year-long homepathic program, my son was back to normal… and I was dreading the day he would need antibiotics for something! After all this work, I did not want to have to start over!

Then the day came. We recently all came down with the flu (for the first time ever), then immediately contracted Strep (also for the first time ever!) Strep is one of the only things I will immediately give them antibiotics for. And, honestly, I was discouraged. However, I had learned a lot from our homeopathic nutritionist and other great resources over the years about what to do during and after antibiotics to help their gut heal and prevent leaks and imbalances that can silently grow into a bigger problem.

As a busy mom of three, I combined all the post-antibiotic recovery programs into something that works for us! For about a month, we have been successfully doing these things:

1 SPECIFIC PROBIOTICS

Not all probiotic strains are the same. Different bacteria support different processes. And not just bacteria, there are beneficial yeast and microbes that help with gut resilience after ABX, like

  • saccharomyces boulardii (yeast)

  • Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (bacteria)

  • Bifidobacterium (bacteria)

Sadly, my favorite all-inclusive probiotic powder for kids is only available if you have access to Fullscript under a homeopathic doctor. If so, check out Springboard FloraBoost.

Otherwise, I found these on Amazon and I would trust these brands. I would combine these for at least a month.

I also made sure they had cultured yogurt (Sigge has very low sugar). We like coconut yogurt since we don’t do well with dairy. I also made meals with sauerkraut and added fermented beet kvass to food when I could.

2 No sugar. Not even a little.

Bad bacteria and yeast feed on sugar. This can lead to a cycle of overgrowth and sugar/carb cravings. While your building up the gut, try to remove all processed and natural sugar. I used more butter and cinnamon to flavor and sweeten things like oatmeal and pancakes. I baked with a tiny bit of sugar after two weeks and made sure to “clothe carbs” well with butter, ghee, or broth-based gravy. This will help the body break down and process carbs easier without as much of a sugar spike. Once you start adding sugar back in, make sure they are getting plenty of fiber along with it.

3 Immune Boosters

Something like 80% of the immune system mediators are created in the gut. So when antibiotics sterilize the gut, there is essentially no immune system! Because of this, we stayed home a little longer even though they felt better, and I treated them as if they were all still sick:

4 Colostrum

Bovine colostrum is designed to build up the gut lining and detox the body - just like it does for baby cows! (And humans, for that matter.) This is why breastfed babies don’t catch sicknesses like adults - they are super protected! I discovered this product through Tiny Health (see no. 5) and use it when they have viruses, or have been eating unfriendly foods, such as seed oils or conventional gluten and dairy at restaurants. When I looked up whether I could take colostrum on antibiotics, I found that it actually HELPS antibiotics work better! It protects the gut lining and helps detox the bacteria! Why don’t doctors tell you this?

Here is my favorite IgG bovine colostrum supplement:

5 Tiny Health At-Home Gut Health Testing

If you want to know exactly which strains of probiotics (and there are hundreds!) your child needs to get their gut back into balance, this is the easiest and most complete answer to your questions! This is a simple stool test that you can do at home and mail in. Three weeks later they send you a breakdown of what’s in the gut, and what’s missing. Plus, specific products that are vetted for quality and diet changes to support what’s going on!

I discovered Tiny Health after my baby was given antibiotics, antiviral meds, and Tylenol in the PICU when he was 2 weeks old! We used these results to make sure he was on the right probiotic and prebiotic. It gave me a lot of confidence as a mom, especially since he was adopted and I could only supplement with donated breast milk. It helped his skin and digestion recover!

I have had friends whose children have had less explosive behavior by supplementing butyrate and whose baby’s eczema healed after taking the test.

I have three Tiny Health tests ready to give the kids! Once I get the results, I will treat them all more specifically. (And I’ll get around to doing one for me but kids first, right Moms?!)

If your little one has been on antibiotics, has issues with eczema, digestion or sleep, I highly recommend getting their gut health tested. You can get a discount on a Tiny Health test or annual membership with the code MOMBODIES here!

Follow me on instagram to see the results and how I plan to implement the plan!

IG @dr.cait_mombodiespt Facebook @dr.caitlindeems

Caitlin Deems
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