HOW DID WE HUMANS EVER MANAGE BEFORE THE ADVENT OF THE OB/GYN PRACTICE? I can understand that there are scenarios where a C-section is lifesaving to the mother or newborn. But 30% of the time? This is an unbelievably high percentage of women undergoing C-section. Some of it is driven by the medicalization of the delivery process (as if it wasn’t able to happen in the prior 1/2 million years without help!) and this near un-resistible urge to induce labor. That induction forces the body into a process it wasn’t just quite ready for yet and the complication and intervention rate goes up from there. But once the delivery is over (as a procedure, it is “over,” as an “experience” with natural childbirth it lives on forever as an incredible memory…and heck…isn’t “natural” childbirth kind of redundant?) the problems can just begin. Without the exposure to healthy bacteria from the vaginal vault, so long as mom hasn’t been on antibiotics, the newborns’ gut gets filled with the wrong type of bacteria and the risk of allergies, asthma and autoimmune disease goes up. So, at the very least, OBs and pediatricians should inform parents that they NEED to give this little tiny newborn probiotics.