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Caesarean section, stimulation of labor with artificial oxytocin … This will not surprise anyone in the XNUMXst century. But every day there are more and more facts confirming the connection between how the child was born and the diseases that he may have later. But what if, for medical reasons, a woman cannot give birth naturally, without drugs and surgery? How to protect the baby?
Evidence from modern scientific research reveals that birth interventions can have an impact on a person’s health throughout the rest of their lives.
Alex Wakeford, Tony Harman, authors of The Microbiome Effect. How the way a child is born affects his future health”*, translated and published in Russia, asks for the first time the question: what are the potential long-term consequences of such interventions in the birth process as a caesarean section or the use of synthetic oxytocin that stimulates labor?
Tony Harman and Alex Wakeford share new information with readers about how formula feeding affects infant health. They explain what exactly happens to a small person at the time of passage through the birth canal.
Knowing these mechanisms, you can make a conscious choice in favor of natural childbirth (after all, a woman does not always go for a caesarean section solely for medical reasons – often she is simply afraid to give birth or thinks that her figure will deteriorate). If surgery is unavoidable, the necessary security measures can be taken.
The authors are filmmakers living in the UK. Their film “Microbirth” was shown in Europe and North America and caused a heated discussion among doctors, midwives and parents.
The new work collects information from experts from different countries, including midwives, global health policy makers, pediatricians, immunologists, immunotoxicologists, geneticists.
Why did they write a book – to scare humanity once again?
As the authors themselves explain, their main audience is future parents and specialists who take part in the birth of a new earthling. “We in no way question the expediency of the future parents’ decision to have a caesarean section. We do not aim to cause a feeling of guilt for the choice made.
Our daughter was born by caesarean section, so we know that not all babies are born naturally. We want parents to be able to make informed choices based on up-to-date information.
At the moment, critical information is mostly hidden in voluminous scientific documents accessible only to specialists. Our job is to spread it.”
What happens to us in the birth canal?
The authors introduce the concept of “microbiome”, which includes trillions of microorganisms living on the surface and inside the human body. These are bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoa and archaea. They live on our skin, in the gastrointestinal tract, genitourinary system, mouth, nose, lungs. And in the vagina of women.
This community of microbes plays a very important role: they support the normal functioning of the body and protect the person from disease. Scientists have found that a short period of time becomes a critical moment for laying the microbiome: immediately before childbirth and immediately after birth.
Microbial exposure likely occurs late in pregnancy, colonization of the gut during breastfeeding, but the most important event for establishing the human microbiome is childbirth.
Surprisingly, microscopic processes in the very first minutes of life determine his health until the end of his days. During childbirth, the main contact of a person with the world of microbes takes place.
When passing through the birth canal, the baby’s body is completely covered with the mother’s bacteria: they get into the baby’s eyes, ears, nose, mouth. And this is important for laying the immune system of the child.
It is the bacteria from the mother’s vagina and intestines that start the long process of training the child’s immune system. That is why interference with its setting in the first minutes of life can lead to health problems.
There is no direct evidence that those born by caesarean section will certainly develop an autoimmune disease.
A child born as a result of a caesarean section gets acquainted with microbes not from the friendly world of the mother’s body, but from the air, from contact with the skin of other people. But even in this case, it is possible to acquaint the newborn with the mother’s microcosm through the sowing procedure, through the touch of the skin of the born child to the mother’s skin.
How many midwives know and do this? When such a child becomes an adult, his immune system begins to attack not antigens, but, for example, react to gluten. Or show a reaction in the form of dermatitis to objectively harmless agents.
There is no direct evidence that those born by caesarean section will certainly develop some kind of autoimmune disease. But such children are more likely to develop these conditions in the future.
For example, there are strong epidemiological data indicating that caesarean section significantly increases the risk of developing chronic diseases such as bronchial asthma, type XNUMX diabetes mellitus, celiac disease, as well as overweight and obesity.
The authors of the book argue that there is a connection between the gut and the brain, and a number of neurobehavioral disorders are rooted in a modified gut microbiome that originates from caesarean section.
The reverse side of stimulation with oxytocin
The effect of oxytocin (the key hormone during labor) on the mother and fetus has been little studied. Sue Carter, a behavioral neuroscientist, director of the Kinsey Institute and a professor of biology at the University of Indiana, studies the effects of synthetic oxytocin on animals. She shared with the authors of the book the results of the study in field mice.
The effect of the synthetic hormone varied depending on the dose received by the newborn mouse. If he received a small one, it was possible to stimulate his active social behavior. If the dose was higher, the animals remained active and formed long-term pair bonds. But from the largest doses, the animals did not form pairs and went to strangers.
It was also found that the changes that occurred in the brain from the resulting synthetic hormone turned out to be lifelong. The results, according to Sue Carter, are frightening.
“We conducted a study on steppe voles, in which newborn males received oxytocin once on the first day of life, and published its results several years ago. When the cubs grew, about half of them exhibited atypical sexual behavior, and many of the remaining people who managed to have sexual intercourse with the female did not secrete spermatozoa. For us it was a real shock. “
Today, oxytocin is often used with ease even when there is no obvious medical need for it. It is used not in the cases shown for this drug, but for stimulation of contractions. What doses women take, how they affect the newborn is a topic for new research.
What is epigenetics?
In addition to direct transmission of microbes to the next generation on the maternal line (through the grandmother’s pathways – to the mother, from the mother to the child …), there is another micro-effect that occurs during childbirth. These more complex mechanisms are studying epigenetics.
Epigenetics studies the switching on and off of genes that determine our appearance, character traits, our behavioral tendencies, predisposition to certain diseases, and other aspects of our personality.
According to the UK Science Museum website, a person is born with 24 genes. Throughout life, they do not change: we are born and die with the same set of genes. But sometimes gene expression changes. Scientists call this the inclusion of a gene.
What makes a gene turn on or off?
Environmental factors, exposure to chemicals, dietary changes, lifestyle changes, all of these actually have a long-term impact on development, metabolism and health, sometimes even in the next generation. If a parent has risk factors for developing a disease, the child may also have those risk factors.
From the point of view of epigenetics, not changes in this particular gene are considered, but changes over the genome that can trigger the gene expression in another scenario.
How does this relate to childbearing? The fact is that scientists are currently studying whether the birth itself can be one of the factors that include a particular gene.
Referring to experts, the authors of the book suggest that while a child develops in the womb, certain of its genes are in the off state. Passage through the birth canal, stress and pressure may be the most important environmental factors that turn on the genes necessary for health. And those genes that were needed to stay in the womb are turned off.
This is just a hypothesis requiring further research.
Members of the International Study Group on the Epigenetic Impact of Childbirth, along with other researchers, are now developing the hypothesis that childbirth is an epigenetic event. According to Professor Hanna Dahlen, “there is no other process with such fine tuning, including such a quantity of hormones.”
How does caesarean section affect epigenetics? It is important here when the operation is performed: before or after the onset of labor. If, before the start of the operation, the woman managed to enter the active phase of childbirth, it is likely that the child managed to experience some of the sensations and secrete hormones associated with natural childbirth.
If the child does not receive a “hormonal cocktail”, he may not be physically and psychologically ready for the birth.
Why did they write this book?
The book The Microbiome Effect raised many difficult questions. Yes, now we know about it. And what can we do?
As much as possible to strive for natural birth processes, the authors believe.
If a caesarean section is unavoidable, the obstetric system should provide comprehensive assistance in the process of optimal seeding and nutrition of the newborn microbiome: immediate contact of the mother’s skin with the baby’s skin right in the operating room, establishing breastfeeding.
Also in the future, it will be possible to use swab culture of the microbiome of a child born as a result of caesarean section.
The authors of the book are sure that the future is not only in the hands of scientists, but also in the hands of each of us.
According to Dr. Blazer’s hypothesis about a vanishing microbiota, the modern “plague” that affects industrial nations may be associated with a decrease in bacterial diversity in our intestines.
The use of antibiotics, modern diet and lifestyle, and an increase in caesarean sections all contribute to the reduction in bacteria.
In the most pessimistic scenario, an “antibiotic winter” awaits us, when we all become susceptible not only to modern non-communicable diseases, but also to infectious ones. The way we live today makes pandemics more likely.
Such a forecast looks depressing, but the discoveries in the field of microbiota and epigenetics give hope that we can reverse the process. The authors of the book are sure that the future is not only in the hands of scientists, but in the hands of each of us.
* Resource, 2017.