Giving birth is a miracle, sure, but it’s a darn difficult one. And however you choose to bring life into the world is completely up to you, whether that’ a vaginal birth, C-section or adoption.
But sometimes (a lot of the time) things don’t go exactly how we planned, and many women undergo an emergency caesarean section they never envisioned having throughout their pregnancy.
But according to new research, we can now offer some comfort to parents who’ve gone through that experience, as the benefits of having a child this way has been outlined.
Published in the Journal of American Medical Associates, the research demonstrated that babies delivered via emergency -section – as in the labour process has already begun before being taken into the operating theatre - experience fewer health problems that those delivered through a planned C-section.
The results came as a surprise to those conducting the study, as it was previously assumed that an elective caesarean would bare more benefits considering the controlled environment.
The researchers followed the progress of full-term, firstborn births of 321,287 babies in Scotland over a period of 15 years, checking in on the longterm health of babies, and was one of the most extensive observations of how planned C-sections differ from other births.
They looked at number of babies that suffered from health issues like allergies, asthma, and obesity.
The study leader, Dr. Mairead Black from the University of Aberdeen told the New York Times that is it the process of labour that helps protect the baby, whether that’s completed vaginally or not.
She said:
“Our thinking was: If a baby is born naturally, it comes into contact with bacteria from the mother, which might help with immune system development.”
Between February 2013 and March 2014, 13 per cent of births in England took place via an emergency caesarean.