There are so many legends, superstitions, suggestions and advice passed down about childbirth and childrearing. People will tell you to bury the umbilical cord after your child is born, eat the placentae to help you heal after childbirth, use the baby’s urine to cure a skin condition. It’s a lot out there.
But there’s a new one out there that just might give you pause. It’s called vaginal microbial transfer or Vaginal Seeding. Essentially, the process calls for the mother to rub her vaginal secretions on her baby shortly after childbirth.
Huh? Wait, why?
Well, the technique comes from a boutique study conducted by Dr. Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, an associate professor of medicine at New York University. The premise for the idea comes from analyzing babies who are born vaginally vs. those who are born through cesarean section (or c-section).
According to the New York Times, the first germs to colonize a newborn delivered traditionally come, almost exclusively, from the mother; whereas an infant born from a c-section is exposed to germs from the environment, bacteria from the less scrubbed areas like lamps, walls and the skin cells from everyone in the delivery room.
Some experts believe that the difference in bacteria can affect the lifelong health of the children. Scientists have suggested that children born through cesarean section have an increased risk for developing type 1 diabetes, allergies, asthma and obesity because they’re missing a key bacteria that helps build the immune system from birth onward.
Dr. Dominguez-Bello said “the infant’s first exposure to microbes may educate the early immune system to recognize friend from foe.”
Dominguez-Bello’s study, conducted with 18 babies born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the University of Puerto Rico hospital, found a way that a mother’s microbes can be transferred to a child even if they do not pass through the vagina.
In vaginal seeding, microbes are collected on a sterile piece of gauze, dipped in saline solution and then inserted into the mother’s vagina an hour before the c-section is scheduled. After the baby is born, researchers swabbed the baby’s lips, face, chest, arms, legs, back, genitals and anal region with the gauze.
For the first few days ambient skin bacteria dominated in the mouth and skin of the c-section babies who had not been swabbed. Whereas the infants who had been swabbed closely resembled vaginally delivered babies.
After a month though, all the oral and skin microbes of all the infants began to resemble normal adults patterns.
So, the results are not entirely conclusive one way or the other just yet. All of the infants will be followed for one year to look for differences in the groups.
Until more is known about the process, physicians are hesitant to recommend it. Though there are parents who are either asking to have their babies swabbed or doing it themselves.
What do you think of the whole process? Does it make sense to you or does it seem unnecessary?