One of the many aspects of allergic tendency that are discussed in popular media is that of the nurtural environment.  It is often said that allergies develop because the child’s environment is too clean.

A recorded effect of a clean nurtural environment is the failure to acquire the polio virus from faecal transfer, at birth.  Thus, as cleanliness begins to invade birthing practices in a culture, so the incidence of damaging polio within the population soars rapidly to become an epidemic.  This is countered by early, oral vaccination with a less harmful variant of the virus.  The harmful variant may be eradicated someday. This does reflect a danger from attempting to change the nurtural environment, but the result of this change is evidence of failure to to develop specific antibodies to the polio group of viruses naturally and nothing to do with allergic disorders.

With allergies, it is not the existence of a germ free environment that provokes a response, but the early introduction of non-human milk or milk substitutes that leads to atopic, allergic reactions throughout the rest of the recipient’s life.

Atopic disorders may be affected by failure to transfer an adequate range of symbiotic bacteria from mother to child to facilitate health of mucous membranes and of the colon, caecum and appendix.  Often, gut microflora, such as Candida yeasts, become facultative pathogens as the mucous membrane becomes damaged by atopic inflammatory processes.  An atopic mother may be unable to host, or pass on, the range of symbiotic bacteria that her infant requires for good health.