Researchers from the Universities of Alberta and Toronto, Canada, have found that having your baby via caesarean section could increase the wellness risk of developing asthma. The study, published in the peer-reviewed Canadian Medical Association Journal, has taken a first step in attempting to establish a link between caesarean section and disease, noting that caesarean babies lack the protection of vital bugs, which could affect their wellbeing.
For their cross-sectional study, the researchers examined the gut bacteria of babies, looking at how this differed depending on whether they were delivered naturally or by caesarean section. They also analysed other factors, such as whether or not the babies were breastfed during their first three to four months of life. According to the Canadian team, scientists poorly understand the development of bacteria in the gut in the early part of your life, but their study showed that bacteria in the gut can be influenced by your and your physician decisions about type of delivery and infant diet.
Co-author Dr Anita Kozyrskyj, of the University of Alberta, commented, ‘Our findings are particularly timely given the recent affirmation of the gut microbiotia as a “super organ” with diverse roles in health and disease, and the increasing concern over rising caesarean delivery and insufficient exclusive breastfeeding.’ She added that further research is needed into the determinant of the gut bacteria and any associated health outcomes, but the actual design of the study may not have added much to the ‘poor understanding’ of gut bacteria as Dr Kozyrskyj suggests.
For the study, the researchers only evaluated an extremely small sample of 24 healthy babies. Further, they only examined the infants at one point in their life, and their research can tell you little else about the causes of these bacterial levels, or how they related to longer-term health outcomes. They discovered that caesarean delivered babies had significantly lower amounts of a type of ‘good’ bacteria compared to those who were delivered naturally, but the former group only comprised of six babies, and the rest were vaginally delivered.
However, it could be the case that this was a ‘proof of concept’ piece of research, meaning the investigators were only going so far as to see if the genetic sequencing techniques used in the study could provide useful results. Therefore, while it can be said that the researchers have taken a first step in attempting to establish a link between caesarean section and disease, no cause-and-effect relationship has been proven, and there’s still a long way to go before this link can be confirmed.
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