There has been an emerging trend among mothers who have a caesarean section for “vaginal seeding”, a process that exposes newborn babies to the micro-organisms they would normally encounter during vaginal birth. This week, though, Danish obstetricians writing in the international journal BJOG said that it “could do more harm than good”. Doctors at the UK’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists also warned against it.
Although the research is new and untested, experts in award-winning documentary Microbirth suggest a link between the health of our microbiome and the “epidemic” of non-communicable diseases (such as asthma, eczema and cardiovascular disease) that the World Health Organization fears could bankrupt our health systems.
Dr Maria G Dominguez-Bello, at the New York School of Medicine, theorises that exposing babies born by caesarean to vaginal microbes may gift them a more normal colony of organisms with potential positive health benefits.
Frederique Rattue, from Surrey, said she was “devastated” to need a caesarean with her fourth baby but felt that “swab seeding” was key to feeling that she had “ownership” of the birth.
In a simple but bizarre-sounding process, Rattue incubated a sterile gauze in her vagina that baby Diego was wiped down with after birth, transferring the microbes the child would otherwise have missed. Rattue says her midwife and obstetrician were happy to help with the procedure.
Will the evidence base for seeding grow? Will our vaginas turn out to contain the mysterious key to world health, or will doctors’ concerns be borne out?
Until there is any hard evidence, it will be up to women to decide what’s best for them and their babies – and for midwives and doctors to support their decisions.
