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Microbiological Research In Babies

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In the United States, cesarean delivery (CD) of newborns has increased as much as 48% since 1996 (1, 8-9). Many of these deliveries are performed by physicians for medical reasons; however, there are those performed at the request of the mother as well. There are a number of risks involved with a CD versus a vaginal delivery (VD) including neonatal depression due to the spinal anesthesia mothers receive, fetal injury due to forced delivery, and acute respiratory distress syndrome. In addition to those risks, babies born by CD are prone to other post-natal issues as well. Microbiological research has made scientists more aware of the importance the microbiome to human survival and quality of life. In fact, in the last two decades babies born …show more content…

Group B strep is a harmful bacterium that can cause illness as serious as meningitis in infants. For this reason, mothers who test positive for these bacteria are given prophylactic antibiotics to avoid transmission to the baby.
More recently, a more controversial issue has presented itself. Studies indicate that babies born vaginally are less prone to obesity, types 1 and 2 diabetes, Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma, and other autoimmune diseases as opposed to CD related to their exposure to vaginal flora (1, 6-8). This idea has prompted some physicians to expose babies to their mother’s vaginal secretions. The purpose of this paper is to explore the advantages and disadvantages associated with exposing these babies to vaginal …show more content…

A cohort study published in 2005 set out to determine whether CD had a direct correlation to the development of allergic disorders in children. This study followed 8953 children aged 3–10 years. Children diagnosed with allergic rhinoconjunctivitis, asthma, atopic dermatitis, or food allergies were identified from the Kaiser Permanente Northwest Region electronic records. Factors considered in this study included the children's sex, birth weight, birth order, postnatal exposure to antibiotics as well as the mothers' age, ethnicity, education, marital status, smoking status during pregnancy, and use of asthma or hay fever medications identified through the mothers' medical records or through the state birth registry. The results from this study indicated that children born by CD have a significantly higher risk of developing allergic rhinoconjuntivitis than children born by VD (3). Similar studies like the Huang study set out on a similar mission to demonstrate the connection between CD and the risk of developing asthma. This study is a meta-analysis of 26 studies that conducted research in this matter. The study concluded that babies born by CD are at a 20% higher risk of developing asthma as a result of their delivery route

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