Vaginal Seeding for C-Section (Caesarean, Cesarean, Cesarian)

It seems that this ‘new craze’ of vaginal swabbing (seeding) for caesareans is creating waves within the medical fraternity. (Actually, it’s not all that ‘new’ in our opinion because Hypnobirthing Australia has been including it as a possible birth preference for mums in the ‘Positive Caesarean Birth’ course since 2011!)

The British Medical Journal recently released an article titled ‘How should health professionals engage with this increasingly popular but unproven practice’ and must admit I shook my head in disbelief when reading the article.

I wonder if the authors of this article have considered the fact that babies traditionally DO come out via the vaginal route. By saying that this practice is putting caesarean born babies at unnecessary risk; are they saying that all vaginally born babies are put at unnecessary risk (because of the bacteria they are subjected to along the birth path)? Hmmmm.

Perhaps we should all go and wash our vaginas out with disinfectant right now! JOKE – PLEASE don’t do this!!!!!!.

The article in the British Medical Journal also left out the important findings from recent research from the leading expert in birth and the microbiome, Dr Maria Dominguez-Bello, Associate Professor in the Human Microbiome Programme at New York University.

Along with a team of researchers, Dominguez-Bello used the ‘gauze seeding’ technique on four babies born via caesarean, and compared the results with seven vaginally born babies, and seven born via caesarean but not ‘seeded’. The results, published this month in the journal Nature, found that the ‘seeded’ babies had skin, gut, anal and oral bacterial communities that more closely resembled the vaginally born babies.

Of course, mothers would consult caregivers about the seeding preference before-hand and if there were high risk factors to the baby (such as testing positive for group B strep and other conditions), then the seeding preference would need to be seriously reconsidered. We need our caregivers support, here. We’re not stupid!

Anyway, rant over… I wanted to share this particular article because it is the best written of all the articles I have seen on the subject in the past few days. Well done to Milli Hill, from The Telegraph, for writing a balanced and informative article on the subject!