Right now the practice is called “vaginal seeding”. The doctor places several sterile pieces of gauze into the mom’s vagina and after the baby is born this gauze is rubbed over the baby’s face, head and mouth.

The bacteria that colonizes the baby’s colon comes from the mom’s vagina not her colon. The colon contains a lot of pathogenic microbes that could cause life threatening illnesses in a baby who has no immune system yet. You don’t want to expose an infant to bacteria found in the adult rectum. No squishing of baby into the bum! In early days the baby might have had its face rubbed into the vagina but the risk of the baby picking up fecal contamination makes too risky. Think of the eye infections the baby could get.