The vaginal flora comes from the bowel - if the mother has abnormal gut flora, she will have abnormal flora in her birth canal. Fathers are not exempt because fathers also have gut flora, and that gut flora populates their groin and they share their groin flora with the mother on a regular basis!
Normal vaginal micro-flora of a premenopausal woman is composed of a variety of bacterial species
- Anaerobes are most frequently isolated - in numbers of 10 million -10 billion CFU/ml of vaginal secretion. Lactobacillus spp.is the most frequently isolated genus found in the highest numbers. They play a role in maintaining the balance of the normal vaginal flora by producing hydrogen peroxide. It has been shown that approximately 70% of premenopausal, healthy women harbor hydrogen peroxide-producing Lactobacilli.Corynebacterium, Staphylococcus and Bacteroides spp. are also frequently isolated.
