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Newborns delivered by C-section tend to have more gut microbes associated with hospitals than their vaginally delivered peers, according to a study published today (September 18) in Nature—but the health effects, if any, of that difference are unclear.
Previous studies have linked C-sections with an increased risk of conditions such as asthma and diabetes, leading some researchers to suspect that babies born in this way may have different mixes of gut bacteria because of their lack of exposure to the birth canal. But studies of whether babies born by C-section do have microbiomes that are distinct from vaginally delivered infants have yielded conflicting results.
“Caesarean sections are a life-saving and medically necessary intervention,” says Lisa Stinson, a molecular microbiologist and reproductive biologist of the University of Western Australia who was not involved in the new study, in an interview with Science News. But, she adds, “we ...
