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Babies born by cesarean section have a weaker immune response to vaccines than babies born normally, a study has found.
A research team led by Professor Debbie Bogart, a pediatric infectious medicine specialist at the University of Edinburgh Medical School in the UK, together with a research team from the University of Utrecht Medical Center in the Netherlands, conducted a study on 120 newborn babies born through vaginal delivery or caesarean section. HealthDay News reported on the 26th.
The research team followed and observed the microbial composition in the feces of these newborns from meconium, the first feces after birth, to one year of age.
As a result, vaginal babies had higher levels of bifidobacterium and Escherichia coli than those born by caesarean section.
In addition, the research team collected saliva after the pneumococcal vaccine given at 1 year old and the meningitis vaccine given at 18 months old, and measured the degree to which antibodies were formed.
Babies born vaginally, which had a lot of beneficial bacteria such as bifidobacterium, were found to have a twice as high rate of antibody formation against pneumococcal and meningitis preventive vaccines as compared to babies born by caesarean section.
Although there were no other vaccines such as influenza and BCG, it is known that these beneficial bacteria affect antibody formation in other vaccines.
Babies born by caesarean section also developed antibodies when vaccinated. It’s just that the number of antibodies was lower than in vaginal babies.
Therefore, the research team emphasized that it was not without vaccine protection.
The research team added that all the newborns studied were born at full term, so there was no possibility that they were affected by premature birth or other diseases.
The research team speculated that this difference in immune response between babies born vaginally and babies born by caesarean section could be due to the different types of beneficial bacteria present in the baby’s body at birth.
Birth is to leave the sterile space of the womb and enter a world full of germs.
Microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, and archaea live in our bodies, eventually outnumbering human cells.
One of the roles of these microbes is to train our immune system early in life.
At birth, the first thing that gets hit when passing through the mother’s birth canal is the bacteria that live in the mother’s vagina.
However, when a baby is born by caesarean section rather than vaginal delivery, the first microorganisms that enter the body are bacteria that live on the human skin, in hospitals, or at home.
The initial communication between the baby’s immune system and microbiome at birth is particularly important, the researchers stress.
That’s because microbes that live in the gut release chemicals called short-chain fatty acids, signaling to the immune system that it’s time to act.
Without this process, the research team explained that fewer B cells, immune cells that make antibodies, are produced.
Regarding this, Professor Neil Maebott, an immunology expert at the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh, said, “It is not clear whether microorganisms in the body directly affect the increase in the immune system’s antibody response. commented that it suggests that it may be possible to administer
The findings were published in the latest issue of Nature Communications, a British science journal.