Welcome to Natural MD Radio, your place to hear the whole truth on health and medicine for women and children and get the tools you need to take back your health naturally starting now. I'm Dr. Aviva Rong. While so many aspects of Western medicine are life-saving and indispensable, this doesn't mean

that they aren't without unintended consequences and further that abuse of these

practices can lead to wide-scale consequences such as the case with two

modern medical practices, antibiotic use and cesary in section.

Each carries consequences even when used appropriately, and both have been recognized as widely overused in recent decades, to the extent that antibiotic

overuse and consequentially, antibiotic resistance has become a major global public health problem. An overuse of

Cessarian section has led even obstetric societies in the US to seek strategies

for reducing what is currently a 34% national Cessarian section rate.

As research has been emerging on the importance of the human microbiome on our health, so too has

research emerged on the potentially deleterious impacts of early antibiotic

exposure and Cessarian section which go hand in hand on the long-term health of our children. Studies have demonstrated that babies

born by Cessarian have a greater lifetime risk of obesity, type 1 diabetes, asthma and

celiac disease, and it's thought that other diseases, including juvenile arthritis,

inflammatory bowel disease, immune deficiencies, and other conditions may also be associated

with early perturbation of natural colonization of the infant with the maternal

microbiome at the time of birth and or early antibiotic exposure.

Joining me today is none other than Dr. Maria Dominguez Bello, one of the most accomplished and respected

microbiome researchers in the

world and arguably the leading researcher on the infant microbiome, Cessarian section, and the microbiome's impact on our health.

She particularly studies also the impact of Western lifestyles effects on the human

microbiome.

Dr. Dominguez-Bello, who has a PhD in microbiology, has published over 120 papers on

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