The kids’ poop that has been frozen can help kids who have gut infections like C. diff
McMaster Children’s Hospital wants your kids’ poop so they can add it to their collection of frozen stool and use it to help other kids.
Dr. Nikhil Pai, a pediatric gastroenterologist at the Hamilton hospital, says that their stool bank for kids is the only one in Canada.
In a phone interview, he said, “We’re really proud of that because we feel like we’re helping kids all over the country.”
The hospital opened it so it could offer fecal transplants to Canadian children with gut infections like Clostridium difficile, also known as C. diff.
When a bacteria gets into the large intestine, it can cause fevers and diarrhea. Even if someone is taking antibiotics for something else, they can still get sick.
But Pai said there’s a way to fix it.
He can take healthy bacteria from a donor’s stool and put them in a patient’s body through an enema. This way, the healthy bacteria can outcompete C. diff and get rid of it for good.
One family said that Stool Bank changed their lives
Tanya Gillis told CBC Hamilton that her nine-year-old daughter, Kayleah Atkins, has had a “life-changing” experience with the stool bank.
When Atkins was born, she seemed to be in good shape. She had her first seizure five weeks later.
“Through that, we learned she had a rare genetic disorder,” Gillis said in a phone interview from her home in Millville, N.S.
According to Boston Children’s Hospital, the disorder is called CDKL5. It is a neurodevelopmental condition with a number of symptoms, such as low muscle tone and problems with development.
Gillis said that her daughter can’t talk or move, and she also has stomach problems.
Atkins got C. diff. in 2020, and it kept coming back for 14 months.
“Nothing helped her feel better… “Her life had no value at all,” Gillis said. “She would just cry or feel bad all day… It breaks my heart.”
Then Gillis heard about the new pile of children’s poop at McMaster Children’s Hospital.
To do a fecal transplant, Gillis and Atkins flew from Nova Scotia to Hamilton.
Atkins was the first person to take part in the program. Gillis said that after the surgery, her daughter was like a “new kid.”
“For everything else we’d had to do up to that point, it was crazy to see how easy and effective [the transplant] was,” she said.
Hospital looking for donor
Gillis said that she hopes that other stool banks for children will open all over the country.
Pai said that having stool banks and fecal transplants for kids is hard because there aren’t enough programs for kids, there aren’t enough stool samples from kids, and the pandemic shut down some programs for adults.
Pai also said that he is trying to make fecal transplants into tablets so that patients don’t have to go to the hospital.
Pai said that there are currently 30 stool samples in the bank, but the hospital wants more.
Anyone in good health between the ages of 5 and 18 can give blood, and they will be paid for it.
From one stool donation, between five and ten treatments can be made.