C-section babies miss the vaginal bacteria that seed a healthy gut microbiome, instead picking up hospital germs. One study in JAMA Surgery linked C-section birth to higher colon cancer risk before age 50. Some hospitals now swab vaginal fluid onto newborns to try to restore what vaginal delivery provides naturally.
The gut of a baby in utero is sterile. There's no bacteria in there. The microbiome that is the garden of these millions of different bacteria is seeded from the bacteria the baby acquires from passing through the birth canal and augmented by breast milk bacteria and skin and kisses from grandparents. But when a baby is born by C section, a sterile baby is extracted from a sterile, operative field. And what may see their microbiome and gut are bacteria that normally live in the hospital at Mount Sinai. They have a protocol now where, if you're born by C section, they take some vaginal fluid and swab it on the baby's skin with the idea that they're going to promote healthy seating in the microbiome. The JAMA Surgery sub journal just had a study that kids who were born by C section were more likely to have colon cancer before age 50, suggesting there's some role of the microbiome.
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