![]() While some specific bacteria may still be missing, there’s also a remarkable amount of overlap across different areas of the body-meaning that breastfeeding is doing a lot of compensatory work to build up a baby’s systems. Those same C-section babies, however, were found to have received nearly a third of their microbiome from breastfeeding, while the bacterial breakdown of vaginally born infants included only 11.2% that was traceable to breast milk. In analyses of babies’ feces two weeks post-birth, the percentage of the infant microbiome that could be traced back to maternal fecal contributions was two times larger in vaginally delivered babies than in babies delivered by C-section. Even more interesting was their discovery that how the babies were delivered seemed to influence where on their mom the bulk of their bacterial colonies originated from. In all infants, regardless of delivery method, an average of 58.5% of their microbial landscape could be traced directly back to their mothers-a number they say reiterates the importance of things like skin-to-skin contact (including kisses and cuddles) in an infant’s first weeks. “We said, ‘Let’s try to put it all in one, holistic context-whole mom and whole baby,’” says Bogaert. At each stage, they compared the unique microbiota they found to that of six different microbial hotspots on the infants’ mothers: their skin, breast milk, nose, throat, vagina, and feces. We didn’t know, and we hadn’t considered it.”īogaert and de Steenhuijsen Piters’s research followed 120 Dutch mothers and babies, collecting skin, nose, saliva, and gut microbiome samples from the infants at two hours, one day, one week, two weeks, and one month post-birth. ![]() ![]() “It wasn’t until recent years that we could do these studies. “This was just entirely unknown,” Bogaert says. In their new study, Bogaert and de Steenhuijsen Piters found that when babies born by C-section are breastfed, the microbes they receive from breast milk seem to compensate for the lack of microbes from other initial sources. And the question was, where were these bacteria eventually coming from? And do they come from the mother from other sources or from the environment?” Specific microbial differences in C-section babies have been shown to directly cause some of these health conditions.īut despite any differences, says Bogaert, the simple fact that babies born by C-section live and grow shows that “any child is colonized. And the link is more than just associative, he adds. “For a long time, Cesarean section birth itself has been associated with certain outcomes-for example, obesity, Type-1 diabetes, and allergies,” explains de Steenhuijsen Piters. The potential consequences of not receiving enough bacterial exposure at birth are fairly well understood. Read More: You Can Do Everything ‘Right’ and Still Have a Preterm Birth ![]() Debby Bogaert, a pediatrics researcher at the University of Edinburgh and lead author on the study, this practice often just isn’t enough to fully fill the gap. These tactics have proved helpful for the infant microbiome, but some experts have expressed concern about associated risks, such as the unwanted transfer of harmful bacteria or viruses, including STIs. Past studies have looked at methods of compensating for missed microbial exposure, the most notable of which involves a practice called vaginal seeding, in which a mothers’ vaginal and sometimes fecal excretions are transferred to a C-section infant’s mouth or skin shortly after birth. “When you compare emergency C-sections-when a woman has already gone into labor and the child has already passed into the birth canal partly-and elective C-sections, children are more similar to vaginally newborn children,” he explains. Wouter de Steenhuijsen Piters, a physician and data scientist at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands and senior author on the study. There’s no question that vaginal births impart more beneficial bacteria than C-sections, says Dr. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |