C-section babies get swab of bacteria
Study looks into role of vaginal fluid in babies’ health
WASHINGTON — Sharing bacteria in the operating room normally is a no-no, but in an experiment, researchers gave babies born by cesarean section a dose of presumably protective germs from their moms’ birth canal.
We share our bodies with microbes — on the skin, in the mouth, in the gut— that help keep us healthy, a community, or microbiome, that starts forming at birth. Usually, a vaginal birth marks babies’ first massive exposure to the bacteria. But babies born by C-section miss out on those particular bugs, something many scientists suspect could have consequences later in life.
Monday, researchers reported the first hint that it’s possible to at least partially restore the missing microbes to babies born surgically, simply by swabbing those infants with their mothers’ vaginal fluid within two minutes of birth.
“What we are going to show is how babies assemble their microbiome,” said microbiologist Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello of New York University, who led the pilot study published in the journal Nature Medicine. “Do C-section babies ever catch up?”
Far more research is needed to prove if the technique really works — or makes a difference in babies’ health.
This first-step attempt to manipulate birth microbes was very small, comparing seven babies born vaginally with 11 born by scheduled C-section, four ofwhomgot that dose of their mothers’ bacteria. Over the next month, researchers took more than 1,500 samples of different body sites to see howtheinfants’ ownmicrobiomeswere developing.
The specially exposed Csection babies developed microbial neighborhoods more similar to vaginally born infants than to the other C-section tots, Dominguezreported. In particular, the swabbed babies harbored more of two bacteria species thought to play a role in training the immune system that were nearly absent in the untreated C-section babies.
The bigger question is not just how the bugs affect early microbiome development but whether that translates to better health years later. Previous studies suggested babies born by C-section have a higher risk of developing asthma, allergies and certain other health conditions.
Dominguez-Bello began the study at the University of Puerto Rico but now has expandedit atNYU, with84 babies enrolled so farwhose microbiomes are being tested for a year. Already, she has 13,000 samples waiting to be analyzed if she can find the funding.
Specialists cautioned against a do-it-yourself approach. Mothers-to-be are supposed to be tested for pathogens that could spread during labor — and those in the study were closely scrutinized — but very little is known about the complex mix of vaginal microbes and which are most important.