Caesarean section?

Breast milk is the best possible nutrition for your baby. Close contact with your baby – skin-to-skin bonding – not just in the first few hours of life, is the first step towards successful breastfeeding.

For the baby, a caesarean section represents a greater psychological and physical strain, resulting in a more complicated postnatal adaptation. The baby is not ready for birth at that moment; unlike with vaginal birth, during which stress hormones are released into the baby’s body and lung fluid is expelled as the baby passes through the mother’s bony pelvis, making the first breath after birth easier. In the long term, children born by caesarean section have weaker immunity than their peers who were born naturally. Epidemiological data on the link between caesarean section and the subsequent development of obesity, asthma, type 1 diabetes and neurodevelopmental disorders—including autism spectrum disorders—have been published for some time. Some sources also mention a higher incidence of certain childhood cancers. Research suggests that one of the underlying causes of these conditions is a disruption in the development of the child’s natural microbiome – the bacteria that, under normal circumstances during vaginal birth and immediately afterwards, colonise the newborn’s digestive tract and skin.