THURSDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- There is a significant association between cesarean delivery and celiac disease but not Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, according to research published online May 17 in Pediatrics.
Evalotte Decker, of the Hannover Medical School in Germany, and colleagues examined data on the intestinal disease manifestation, mode of delivery and gestational age at birth, postnatal complications and breast-feeding of 1,950 children to analyze a possible association between cesarean delivery and enteric inflammatory diseases in children. The data was gathered on children visiting gastroenterologists for Crohn's disease (516 cases), ulcerative colitis (250 cases), celiac disease (157 cases) and other gastrointestinal illnesses (165 cases), and 862 control subjects visiting non-gastroenterologists.
The researchers found that the rate of cesarean delivery was similar among controls and those with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, but that there was a significantly higher chance that children with celiac disease had been delivered by cesarean section compared with controls (odds ratio 1.8).
"The mode of delivery and associated alterations in the development of the enteric homeostasis during the neonatal period might influence the incidence of celiac disease," the authors conclude.
Abstract
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