London - Deliberately smearing babies born by Caesarian section with their mother's vaginal fluids could increase the risk of infection, doctors have warned.
A fashion for “vaginal seeding” has grown recently amid claims that exposing newborns to the “good” bacteria from the mother's birth canal reduces the risks of obesity, asthma and autoimmune diseases. The practice involves using a gauze swab to transfer a mother's vaginal fluid to the nose, mouth, body and anus of her newborn baby immediately after Caesarean delivery. Proponents argue that this is what happens naturally in a vaginally delivered birth.
However, infectious disease specialists have warned that rather than being beneficial the practice could harm babies and that there is little evidence to support the practice. Vaginal seeding, they said, raises the risk of spreading dangerous infections such as streptococcus B - the most common cause of neonatal sepsis - genital herpes and gonorrhea.
About one in four babies in the UK are delivered by Caesarean section and an increasing number of women are asking doctors to carry out seeding in the belief that it will benefit the long-term health of their child, said Aubrey Cunnington, a clinical senior lecturer at Imperial College London.
“The potential benefits of vaginal seeding have recently been reported and, as a result, demand has increased among women attending our hospitals,” Dr Cunnington and colleagues write in an editorial in The British Medical Journal.
“Demand has outstripped professional awareness and guidance,” they said. Encouraging breast feeding and avoiding unnecessary antibiotics would be better for a baby's gut bacteria, they added.
The researchers believe the evidence of any benefit is not strong enough to warrant the risks of exposing newborns to potentially serious infections. The doctors said they have already intervened in a case of a woman with genital herpes who wanted doctors to perform vaginal seeding.
“At the moment we're a long way from having the evidence base to recommend this practice,” Dr Cunnington said.”There is simply no evidence to suggest it has benefits - it may carry potential risks.”
He added: “The theory is that by transferring bacteria from mom to baby, these bacteria can then make their way to the baby's gut and alter the bacteria in their tummy - called the microbiome.
“There is now quite a lot of evidence that differences in the microbiome are associated with risk of developing conditions such as allergies and obesity,” he said. “However, people have made a leap of logic that gut bacteria must be the link between Caesarean section and risk of these diseases. But we don't know this for sure - or whether we can influence this by transferring bacteria on a swab.”
One particular risk of vaginal swabbing is transferring streptococcus B, which is carried by about one in four pregnant women. Although it poses little or no risk to mothers it can be fatal if it infects babies, warned Dr Cunnington. “Doctors, nurses, midwives and parents need to be aware they are doing something with a potential risk that currently doesn't have any evidence of benefit,” he said.
The Independent