Cape Town - The number of women opting for Caesarean sections in South Africa has soared in recent years but new research suggest that babies born this way may experience attention deficit problems compared to those born naturally.
C-sections are often necessary to save lives and protect mother and baby from prolonged labour, foetal distress or a “breach” but, according to the study, there could be negative consequences.
Researchers from York University in Canada found that the type of birth influenced the infants ability to focus – with those born via C-section demonstrating a slower spatial attention compared to their counterparts.
Spatial attention plays a role in how well babies are able to prioritise and focus on a particular area or object that is of interest to them.
The research appears in the current issue of Attention, Perception and Psychophysics journal, and will be of interest to countries, such as South Africa, where C-sections are on the increase.
While the World Health Organisation recommends that C-sections should only be performed for medical reasons, in recent years the number of C-sections in SA has jumped to 80 percent in some private hospitals.
The rise has been blamed on gynaecologists who opt for defensive medicine to avoid risks associated with natural birth. Many women in the private sector also choose this form of delivery as they believe that it’s safer and more convenient.
In the study, which consisted of two experiments involving different groups of three-month-old infants, researchers monitored eye movement to understand what drew these babies’ attention.
The 36 infants performed either a spatial cueing task or a visual expectation task to test the stimulus-driven spatial attention.
A secondary cue was presented to the edge of their eye line. This activated the infants’ saccadic (quick and jerky) eye movement, so that their eyes turned faster towards the place where a target was subsequently presented.
The stimulus-driven, reflexive attention and saccadic eye movements of the babies born via C-section were found to be slower compared to those of virginally delivered infants.
While researchers found that the birth experience influenced the initial state of brain functioning and should be considered in understanding of brain development, they found no difference in the cognitively driven and voluntary attention of these babies.
Writing in the journal, lead researcher Scott Adler said while it remained unclear whether this effect lasted for a lifetime, it was without doubt that brain development of C-section delivered babies had been impacted by their method of birth.
It also affected their ability to initially allocate their spatial attention.
“Whether there is a connection between birth experience, particularly Caesarean-section delivery, and the attentional deficits seen in some developmental disabilities is clearly speculative, but an intriguing question nonetheless,” he wrote.
Other health problems that had been linked to C-section are chronic health problems such as asthma, diabetes and obesity.
This surgical form of birth has also been linked to greatly increase the baby’s chances of developing allergies.
Scientists believe the babies are left vulnerable by avoiding the journey through the birth canal, which would have exposed them to their mother’s bacteria and aid their immune system.
Cape Argus