Rodney Dietert, Professor of Immunotoxicology at Cornell University, discusses the impact of C-section on longterm health in the film "Microbirth." (Submitted)
“Microbirth” turns microscope on birth practices
- Published: January 6, 2015
The moment of birth is joyful miracle — a time when the loving bond between parent and child is first formed. But something else is formed in that moment that could be the key to the child’s lifelong health, according to a new documentary. That something is the child’s bacterial microbiome, a collection of good bacteria that will keep pathogens at bay while supporting a healthy gut and immune system through life.
Turning a microscope on birth, the film “Microbirth” argues that as a baby passes through their mother’s birth canal, lies directly on their mother’s skin and begins to breastfeed, their bacterial microbiome is first seeded. Caesarean deliveries and other interventions in birth can harm the one-time chance to establish a healthy microbiome. Such interventions could be affecting the microbial inheritance of the next generation, making them more prone to chronic diseases like asthma, type-1 diabetes, obesity, and certain cancers.
“Microbirth” will be screened at 1 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 11, at the Little Art Theatre as part of an event organized to shed light on birth and breastfeeding practices that support healthy children and adults. Admission is free.
Following the 60-minute British documentary, released in 2014, a panel of local and area experts will answer questions. Panelists are local midwife author and educator Cindy Farley, a Certified Nurse Midwife, CNM, and PhD who teaches at Georgetown University; Jalana Lazar, a CNM with a Master’s in Public Health who works at Good Samaritan Hospital in Dayton; Dhyana Graham, a CNM and international board-certified lactation consultant who works at Riverside Memorial Hospital in Columbus, and Leslie Edmunds, a registered dietician with a private practice in Springfield. Local CNM Anne Erickson organized the film screening and panel to spread the word about the latest research on the bacteria benefits of natural, vaginal birth.
“From my perspective as a midwife and mother, birth is an incredible well-designed process and the more we interfere with it, the less it works,” Erickson said.
Read the full story in the Jan. 8 issue of the News.
For more information, visit: http://microbirth.com/
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