micro biome and c sections

[suspiciousofgoldfish]

In a nutshell, wiping your newborn baby in your vaginal discharge after a c section to give them the anti bodies they would have picked up otherwise via the birth canal.

Has anyone done this? I have looked online and there is some evidence of doctors doing this, in the US as far as I can see.

There's lots of info on the benefits but I would like to hear from anyone who can give practical advice please?

I'm in the UK, having a c section soon and have been advised to do this.

I didn't do it first time round as had EMCS and had not heard of it.

If you have done it, how did you, well, do it? When is best to do it? How far in advance do you have to 'collect'?

TIA

I'm hoping to do it but my midwife refused saying not enough evidence yet. So I'm gonna do it myself/get DH to do it.
There are concerns that it increases risk of strep A to baby but then that risk would be there with a vauinal birth.
Pretty sure this will become common place over the next few years but not yet.

Have your docs said they would do it for you?

Thanks scooby.

No they haven't, a friend recommended I do it. I am seeing the midwife this week so will ask her about it.

In theory sounds like it makes sense and would be a good idea, but I'm curious as to whether to prep beforehand, do it at hospital, or once I am home....

If I have a second CS (first was EMCS) then I would like to do this. Had I known the first time around I would have done it then as well.

I saw something about this in an exhibition at the eden centre, I think they inserted a bandage of some king vaginally then wrapped baby in it. Not sureif it was a particular kind of bandage.

Eden project, sorry

No way would I do this unless you were certain you were GBS negative.

There is zero serious evidence base for this so I would skip it. I spoke to a researcher at my maternity clinic who was doing a project that looked likely to disprove the benefits. I doubt it would do any harm but there are much better, proven things you could be focused in after the birth like skin to skin and getting started with bfeeding. I'd concentrate on those if I were you.

What's GBS please drunken?

Interesting thanks dorothea.

I didn't do it with DS and he's fine.

Wilberry i will research, I was a bit when I heard this suggestion and assumed tampon or something .

Gbs is strep B

Who advised you? What are their medical credentials?

There's no serious evidence base for this and a risk you could transfer group b strep or other undesirables to the baby. You will end up transferring a lot of your microbiomes to the baby anyway via normal mother- baby contact.
Breast milk contains some interesting sugar compounds which seem to act as pro and probiotics. The best way to give them a healthy guy microforms is to breastfeed and cuddle.

I took part in a clinical trial to test this as part of my planned c-section earlier this year, which, as someone mentioned above, looks set to prove that there is no evidence of the benefit of doing it.

Not been proven by evidence based medicine - you could in fact be risking health by doing this yourself.

They have yet to properly eliminate other possible reasons. Its no more than correlation rather than causation which could be the result of other things.

The NHS have a lot to do to stop doing ELCS before 39 weeks which DOES have evidence that it causes poorer health outcomes yet is still doing them in large numbers.

I would be far more worried and concerned about that, then this issue.

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Just typed a long message and lost it . In short.. I've looked into this for my own cs but the Nhs say it can probably more harm than good, 20-30% of us have strep b and don't know and nhs don't routinely test at present, so you prob wouldn't know- and it causes life threatening complications in infants... Not worth it imo. Skin to skin and bf if possible. Also many naturopaths (who I often like btw) who promote this do so on anecdotal not good, robust scientific evidence, some also tout the no vaccine hokum ( which also harms kids by not vaccinating, lowers herd immunity etc) which means I tend to ignore those 'experts'. Good luck with your birth!