Caesarean sections may ‘double risk of asthma and allergies’

Babies born by cesarean section have more than double the risk of childhood asthma and allergies, according to a new study.

In a study of 700 children, American researchers found a link between babies born by cesarean section (cesarean section) and suffering from asthma and allergies at the age of six.

A cesarean – a surgery to deliver a baby through incisions in the abdomen and uterus – unintentionally prevents babies from receiving beneficial microorganisms into their mother’s birth canal.

This in turn hinders the development of a baby’s immune system and can double the risk of respiratory illnesses, experts say.

A cesarean, or cesarean, interferes with a baby’s ability to obtain beneficial germs from the mother’s microbiome. In the photo, medical staff pull a newborn baby from a mother via a cesarean section

Cesarean section, which is chosen by about one in four pregnant women in the UK, interferes with a baby’s ability to obtain these beneficial microscopic life forms or ‘probiotics’.

The expert study has implications for understanding the role of cesarean delivery in potentially distorting a child’s microbiota – the community of a trillion beneficial microorganisms.

The microbiota is also known as the microbiome – although the latter term encompasses the collective genomes of microorganisms in a particular environment, as well as the microorganisms themselves.

Researchers say the microbiome develops in babies born by cesarean section, but it may take longer than those who are born naturally.

“ Each generation of mothers passes their microbiome on to the next, as the baby is covered in beneficial germs while being pressed into the birth canal, but this does not happen for babies born by cesarean section, ” the author said. of the study, Professor Martin Blaser. at Rutgers University in New Jersey, United States.

“ Babies born by cesarean section take a while to develop a normal microbiome and during this time, as the immune system also develops, they become more at risk of developing certain diseases like asthma later on.

“This study provides a mechanism for the known link between cesarean birth and increased risk of asthma.”

Researchers analyzed the effects of vaginal birth versus cesarean section in the first year of life for 700 children.

They examined the effects of cesarean section on the diversity and maturity of gut microbial makeup during the first year of life.

To do this, the researchers looked at the fecal samples of the children at one week, one month and one year old.

They then explored whether microbial intestinal disturbances due to the mode of administration were associated with a risk of developing asthma in the first six years of life.

The composition of the microbiome can be significantly affected by cesarean delivery, researchers say. In the photo illustration of probiotic bacteria. Probiotic means a microorganism with beneficial properties. Bacteria are a type of microorganism, just like protozoa and fungi

The researchers found that cesarean delivery was associated with a more than doubled risk of asthma and subsequent allergies by age six, as well as significant changes in the composition of the gut microbiota.

However, at one year, the risk of asthma was reduced in children born by Caesarean section if their gut microbiota had recovered from its initial disturbance and began to mature normally.

“ Even if a child is born by cesarean section and has immense early microbial disruption, it may not lead to a higher risk of asthma if the microbiome matures sufficiently before the age of one, ” said the study author Jakob Stokholm at the Copenhagen prospective study. on asthma in children.

“Our study offers the prospect of restoring a microbiome disrupted by a cesarean section and thus possibly preventing the development of asthma in a child, who is otherwise at high risk.

The results should not deter women from undergoing the potentially life-saving procedure, which can be performed in an emergency, such as when the baby is in a breech position (with his feet first).

MailOnline contacted the researchers to find out if they were controlling for other demographic factors that may have influenced the results.

For example, it is possible that mothers who chose to have a Caesarean section were aware of protecting their babies from microscopic insects, which could have lowered their baby’s immune system.

The study was published in Science Translational Medicine.