4 ms·

I wish the article would have addressed how babies get these mites from their parents. Are they present in the womb? Or do they get transferred from all the h

I wish the article would have addressed how babies get these mites from their parents. Are they present in the womb? Or do they get transferred from all the hugs and kisses?

JshWright 12y ago
There's no way they are in the womb (they wouldn't be able to get inside the uterus, and the immune system would attack them quite quickly if they did). They are almost certainly transfered via close skin contact (breastfeeding, etc).
- pmalynin 12y ago
  "There's no way they are in the womb (they wouldn't be able to get inside the uterus, and the immune system would attack them quite quickly if they did)." That is simply untrue [1,2,3,4, 5]. It has been recently discovered that many fetuses acquire their gut bacteria before parturition, it is logical to assume that the same can happened with these mites. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3747743 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3747743 [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22647043 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22647043 [3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18281199 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18281199 [4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19018955 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19018955 [5] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18166321 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18166321
  - boomlinde 12y ago
    By your reasoning, I guess it would only be logical to assume that elephants can get in there too.
  - ars 12y ago
    > it is logical to assume that the same can happened with these mites Bacteria are about 1/100 the size (1/1,000,000 the volume) of these mites. The mites can be seen by the naked eye (barely). How would the mite even get in? Much less breathe. Bacteria can get in the same way sperm do, mites are not able to swim through the fluid.
    - pmalynin 12y ago
      Frankly my point was more about the immune system.
      - ars 12y ago
        I didn't downmod you, I thought the point about bacteria was good. But you went rather too far in assuming what's true for bacteria is true for mites. Plus the immune system actively works with bacteria to cultivate specific species. So you should not extrapolate to all bacteria either.
smcl 12y ago
If it is the former then this is a beautiful example of something being a hilariously unfathomable idea* in the not too distant past ... and then turning out to be sort of true. I like these :) * = The JD\Dr Cox "shaved the baby" scene in Scrubs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHAAmdskBqU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHAAmdskBqU
igonvalue 12y ago
According to another article[0], > Thoemmes also sampled ten 18-year-olds and found Demodex DNA on just 70 percent of them. This fits with what earlier studies had shown—the mites seem to become more common with age. They’re rare on babies, more common on teenagers, and universal in adults. No one really knows where we get them from. Dogs get their face-mites during nursing, and humans might do the same—after all, one study found a lot of Demodex living in nipple tissue. But the fact that some teens aren’t colonised suggests that we pick up these creatures throughout our lives. [0] http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/08/27/you-almost-certainly-have-mites-on-your-face/ http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/08/27/you-almos...

I wish the article would have addressed how babies get these mites from their parents. Are they present in the womb? Or do they get transferred from all the hugs and kisses?

JshWright 12y ago

There's no way they are in the womb (they wouldn't be able to get inside the uterus, and the immune system would attack them quite quickly if they did). They are almost certainly transfered via close skin contact (breastfeeding, etc).

pmalynin 12y ago
"There's no way they are in the womb (they wouldn't be able to get inside the uterus, and the immune system would attack them quite quickly if they did)." That is simply untrue [1,2,3,4, 5]. It has been recently discovered that many fetuses acquire their gut bacteria before parturition, it is logical to assume that the same can happened with these mites. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3747743 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3747743 [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22647043 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22647043 [3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18281199 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18281199 [4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19018955 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19018955 [5] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18166321 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18166321
- boomlinde 12y ago
  By your reasoning, I guess it would only be logical to assume that elephants can get in there too.
- ars 12y ago
  > it is logical to assume that the same can happened with these mites Bacteria are about 1/100 the size (1/1,000,000 the volume) of these mites. The mites can be seen by the naked eye (barely). How would the mite even get in? Much less breathe. Bacteria can get in the same way sperm do, mites are not able to swim through the fluid.
  - pmalynin 12y ago
    Frankly my point was more about the immune system.
    - ars 12y ago
      I didn't downmod you, I thought the point about bacteria was good. But you went rather too far in assuming what's true for bacteria is true for mites. Plus the immune system actively works with bacteria to cultivate specific species. So you should not extrapolate to all bacteria either.

smcl 12y ago

If it is the former then this is a beautiful example of something being a hilariously unfathomable idea* in the not too distant past ... and then turning out to be sort of true. I like these :) * = The JD\Dr Cox "shaved the baby" scene in Scrubs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHAAmdskBqU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHAAmdskBqU

igonvalue 12y ago

According to another article[0], > Thoemmes also sampled ten 18-year-olds and found Demodex DNA on just 70 percent of them. This fits with what earlier studies had shown—the mites seem to become more common with age. They’re rare on babies, more common on teenagers, and universal in adults. No one really knows where we get them from. Dogs get their face-mites during nursing, and humans might do the same—after all, one study found a lot of Demodex living in nipple tissue. But the fact that some teens aren’t colonised suggests that we pick up these creatures throughout our lives. [0] http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/08/27/you-almost-certainly-have-mites-on-your-face/ http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/08/27/you-almos...