RISKS OF C-SECTION
When Emma Allen-Vercoe’s sisterin-law recently had a caesarean section, she instructed her brother to take a swab of his wife’s vaginal fluid and put it in the baby’s mouth.
Her brother found the advice horrifying, says Allen-Vercoe, who did her best to impress on him the importance of the founder microbes that infants pick up on their way through the birth canal.
The microbes, she notes, have potentially lifelong effects.
Children born by C-section are at increased risk of asthma, obesity and Type 1 diabetes, disorders researchers now suspect are linked to bypassing the vaginal microbes. When infants are surgically removed from the womb during C-sections, the first microbes they encounter tend to come from medical staff and their parents’ skin.
It’s a very different way of entering the world, says Vancouver pediatrician Dr. Stuart Turvey. He leads the Vancouver arm of the CHILD study — Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development study — of 3,500 youngsters in B.C., Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario exploring several factors, including C-sections and bottle feeding, that may contribute to the asthma and allergies affecting millions of Canadians.
A study of 24 Manitoba children involved in the project found babies born by elective C-sections had particularly low bacterial richness and diversity compared to infants born vaginally. And a small European study also involving 24 youngsters, published this summer found children born by C-section start life with insufficient intestinal bacteria flora known to protect against allergies.
Turvey says a paradigm shift is occurring in understanding the importance microbes play in health. But he says it is too early to make recommendations based on the limited data available.
Allen-Vercoe agrees there is much to learn, but says it is clear the first months of life are critical for acquiring important microbes.
She suggests that women who are having elective C-sections to avoid the pain and unpredictability of natural childbirth should reconsider. And women who need the operation should try to ensure their babies are exposed to their vaginal fluids.