The study’s goal was to look at the link between Caesarean section (CS) and inflammatory bowel disease in Nova Scotian children. The study included two retrospective cohorts in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia: all births between 1988 and 2014 that were linked to a clinical registry of all children diagnosed with IBD at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, and all births between 1989 and 1993 that were linked to provincial administrative health data. The primary outcome was an IBD diagnosis; the Administrative Cohort outcome was determined using a previously established methodology. The Nova Scotia Atlee Perinatal Database was used to collect information on the exposures and confounding factors. In the Clinical and Administrative Cohorts, the population incidence of IBD was 13.0 and 20.6, respectively, per 100,000 person-years; 23 percent and 19 percent of children were born through CS in the two cohorts. In the two cohorts, there was no link between CS and IBD.
The findings of two population-based cohorts in Atlantic Canada found no indication of a link between CS and IBD in childhood and early adulthood.
