In the late 70’s Agentina tried to enhance its claims to an Antarctic territory by sending pregnant women there to give birth. From what I can glean, there may have been eight births. At some point, they all returned to Argentina.
There’s a claim in a book my wife is reading that there was an unusually high mortality rate in these babies soon after, the hypothesis being that due to being born in a microbially alien environment, their gastrointestinal tracts were colonised by abnormal microflora resulting in severe GI disorders.
I’m skeptical of this story because: A) A lot of the initial colonisation of the gut comes from the mother during birth (except for caesareans); B) my Googling for this has turned up nothing other than that the first baby born is still alive.
Is anyone aware of anything to back this story up? Does it sound plausible?
There’s understandably a lot of focus on Emilio Palma being the first person born on a continent, but I can’t find anything on the fates of the others. From various (not necessarily trustworthy) sources, I’ve read of eleven Antarctic births, eight from Argentina, three from Chile, all between 1977 and 1984.
I found a quote of the relevant passage in the OP’s book, which says:
I’m tentatively calling bullshit on this claim. For one thing, it waffles its argument by conflating gut bacteria with external temperature as contributing factors in the alleged infant deaths.
For another, there’s a shit-ton of reasons that babies born in Antarctica would be at higher risk for mortality completely unrelated to gut flora, including being thousands of miles away from the nearest neonatal care medical facility.
And finally, I’m not seeing any evidence that the Antarctic “anchor babies” actually did die in infancy at rates significantly higher than normal. It’s already been mentioned that the first of those babies survived to adulthood (and AFAIK is still alive and doing fine), so the book is at the very least sloppy in its phrasing.
In short, OP, absent any cites in the book your wife’s reading that reference actual news reports or preferably medical studies on the alleged disastrous levels of Antarctic infant mortality, I think we can disregard those allegations.
Agree with the bullshit assessment that Kimstu makes. The most significant exposure to the bacteria that colonize people they had just fine: their mothers and then the other adults around them. Even C-section kids bottle fed.
Meanwhile here is the man who was born there, now in his 30s.
Nothing about any of those kids dying … at all. Some pictures of some kids at the Antarctic station there too. They look pretty much alive.
For what it’s worth, here is a full list of names and birthdates of people born in Antarctica. (The author of the page seems more than a little wacky, but provides citations at the end of the list.) There’s no mention of any of them having died.
Also hurting the book’s credibility is the statement that the babies were born at “the South Pole”. Esperanza Base is way out on the end of the Antarctic Peninsula, a long way from the South Pole.
Some people consider this woman (1913-1996) to have been the first baby born in Antarctica, but it isn’t official because she wasn’t born on the continent.
I also noticed that two of the Argentinian babies were born on the same day, but they are not twins.
Yeah, Esperanza base is just a bit farther from the South Pole than Reykjavik is from the North Pole, and just a bit closer than Anchorage Alaska is. And I’m not aware of any issues with babies born either of those places (which, without checking, I’m guessing will have climates not too different from Esperanza; the South Pole is much harsher than the North Pole, but that’s because it’s at high altitude and far from any ocean, unlike Esperanza which is sea level and seaside).
It is a bit disappointing that someone whose bio is fairly decent wrote something that demonstrated so little knowledge of the subject she wrote a book about.
Our microbiome is impacted mightily by what we have been initially colonized with from our mothers in particular (but also by the spewing fountains of bacteria that are other family members and other children/caregivers around us), and lots by our diets that encourage particular gut ecosystems to thrive or wither along, lots by genetic factors intrinsic to each of us that makes us better or worse hosts for particular populations, and maybe some little tiny bit by other bacteria we ingest. That happens just fine and just as differentially whether we are born in New York, Argentina, an Antarctic base, or heck, even if a kid was born on a space station (although at least there, there might be some other factors that could come into play). It is highly probable that a child born in Antarctica growing up to eat similarly as his parents do, has a gut ecosystem, even a complete microbiome (skin inclusive) broadly comparable to his parents’.
Yup. On the other hand, it’s always very satisfying to see one more of the innumerable filthy spawn of ignorance get crushed to a bloody smear right here on the page. Take that, you irresponsibly-alleged pseudofact.
Conditions at the South Pole are very harsh, and it would be unwise for a pregnant woman to go there.
p.s. No, I’ve never been there. However, I do understand that it’s at something like 11,000 feet elevation, and even the compound has consistently low temperatures and humidity.
Just to add a bit more weight to the conclusion, checking through Fretful Porpentine’s link to the list of Antarctiwegians, the second born also appears to be alive and well. I couldn’t find anything about any of the others.
It looks like a sloppy bit of work by the author, maybe recounting an anecdote from someone else that she never verified.
I have no idea about the veracity of the claim itself and I concur with the general thought in this discussion however there does exist a news reportabout this claim. It’s from the German newspaper called *Der Speigel * and seeing the author of the book is German I imagine this is where she got her information from. I asked one of my German friends to translate the relevant passage:
[QUOTE=]
To assure access to this area [Antartica], Argentina tried a trick: the navy transported a woman who was 7-months pregnant to the Esperanza station, who gave birth to the first “Antarctican” in 1978. Shortly afterwards they even established a Kindergarten on the Antartic peninsula - however, the polar-children who grew up in the almost sterile environment showed that they were not strong enough to withstand the pathogens present on the mainland. In the almost sterile air of Antarctica, their immune system could not develop properly. Some of them died early.
[/QUOTE]
Ys, presumably the child gets bacteria from the mother, from food they consume which is never completely sterile, from touching the same surfaces as everyone else as they crawl around and put everything they encounter into their mouth. The only valid argument might be that bacteria that work their way into the domestic environment from local penguin and bird colonies might be very different from what is normally encountered, but we don’t usually hear of high infant mortality in other environments with extreme bird populations.
And on an unrelated-but-related note, I Googled “at what age is it safe to fly with a baby” and the top result said two days. Color me surprised; I’d have thought two months was pushing it.
