We’re all born naked, but we’re not all born with the same coat of microbes — and that may have a lasting impact on health.
Babies born vaginally enter the world coated in bacteria from their mother’s birth canal, but newborns delivered through C-section don’t.
A study published Monday shows a simple procedure that exposes C-section babies to maternal bacteria could smooth out those differences.
"We showed that you could actually transfer the microbes onto a baby born by C-section, and partially restore them to what would’ve happened if they’d been born the natural way," said UC San Diego’s Rob Knight, who co-authored the study.
Population-wide data suggests microbial differences at birth could be playing an important role in long-term health problems. C-section babies tend to have a higher risk of developing obesity, diabetes and immune system problems later in life.
But C-section babies don’t have to miss out on early bacterial colonization, according to Knight and his colleagues.
The researchers, led by New York University’s Maria Dominguez-Bello, tracked 18 newborns for the study. Eleven of the babies were delivered in planned C-sections, and four of them received transfers of vaginal bacteria moments after delivery.
"Essentially what we did is we got some surgical gauze and we put it in the birth canal before the C-section was performed,” said Knight.
That gauze soaked up lots of Lactobacillus and Bacteroides. Rubbing the gauze on the C-section babies improved microbial diversity throughout their bodies. It didn't completely match them with the babies delivered vaginally, but their microbial communities remained comparable even a month later.
Knight says he and his wife decided to perform a similar bacterial transfer when their own daughter was born in an unplanned C-section.
“As parents, we decided to do what we could in terms of transferring the microbes that our daughter would’ve been born with anyway to her immediately after she was born,” Knight said.
The study included a small number of babies. Knight said many more babies will need to be studied over longer periods of time to determine whether bacterial transfers can actually improve the long-term health of people delivered through C-section.
