Infants born via Caesarian section have more bacteria that are considered "bad" and fewer that are considered "good" resident among their gut microbiomes, the Guardian reports.
It adds that a University of Edinburgh-led team collected fecal samples at 10 time points from 46 babies born by Caesarean section and 74 babies born vaginally for analysis. The team reported at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases that the two groups of infants had different microbiomes, according to the Guardian. It notes that mothers were only given antibiotics after having given birth and that there were still differences between babies that were bottle-fed, indicating that antibiotic exposure through breast milk couldn't account for the effect.
Instead, the Guardian reports that these findings indicate that delivery method influences infants' microbial makeup. "We feel that it is proved that mode of delivery is an important driver or modifier of the gut microbiome in young infants," Edinburgh's Debby Bogaert tells it.
A second study from researchers in Finland, it adds, further tied infants' early gut microbiomes to later risk of obesity.