Private Premier Film Screening of
“The MICROBIRTH Plan”
by award-winning filmmakers, Toni Harman & Alex Wakeford
Hosted by Leah Lissauer
WHEN: 04 October, 2025 17h - 19h
WHERE: Portimão Library / Biblioteca de Portimão
The Film:
The Microbirth Plan is a new feature documentary exploring how modern birth practices are disrupting the infant microbiome with long-term consequences for our species.
“This isn’t just a documentary film. It’s a global plan to protect the future of our species.”
- Filmmakers, Toni Harman & Alex Wakeford
Why It Matters:
The Microbirth Plan explores how modern birth practices, including C-sections, antibiotics, and infant formula, can disrupt the infant microbiome, with potentially lifelong consequences for a child’s immunity, metabolism, and brain development.
Backed by the latest science and personal stories, this film is a global call to action to better protect babies' microbial inheritance — and to empower the families and professionals involved in their care.
For us, it’s personal. For our babies, it’s urgent.
This positive action plan is built on a decade of scientific research to give all babies the best possible start in life.
This film is NOT calling for an end to C-sections, antibiotics or formula-feeding, and there is no judgement, guilt, shaming or questioning any parent's choice.
And certainly, our desire is not to create any feeling of anxiety or mistrust in someone's midwifery/obstetric care - our goal is to open up avenues of discussion so that all parents feel confident in their informed choices.
However, we believe there needs to be a plan to protect a baby's microbiome, especially about what can be done after birth to restore the baby's microbiome if a baby is born by C-section, exposed to antibiotics or formula fed.
This is not just a film, this is a positively-charged, energetic movement, bringing parents together with their care providers, in communities all around the world.
Let's get the conversation started.
That is The Microbirth Plan.
Why? What’s The Problem?
This film reveals an urgent science-backed problem.
Modern medicalised childbirth practices, in particular high rates of C-sections and antibiotics, are killing mothers’ beneficial microbes.
These are microbes that have been passed down across generations, from mother to baby, through vaginal birth, skin-to-skin contact and breastfeeding.
The function of these microbes is to help protect a child's long-term health, reducing the risk of disease.
Without these beneficial microbes present in early life (and there is a narrow "critical window" of opportunity for a child to receive these microbes), a child's immune system might become mal-educated.
This can significantly increase the risk of that child developing multiple diseases, including asthma, allergies, diabetes, obesity and many auto-immune conditions later in life. There may even be consequences for a child's brain development.
Many studies have linked being born by Cesarean to an increased risk of later developing:
Asthma, allergies, and atopic disorders including:
Allergic rhinitis
Asthma
Food allergies
Atopic dermatitis (eczema).
Some studies suggest a higher risk of hospitalization for asthma and possibly food allergy/food atopy (e.g. allergic rhinitis, asthma & atopic dermatitis/eczema)
Neurological disorders including :
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD)
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Some studies suggest that C-sections may also be associated with lower motor and language development scores in early childhood
Metabolic disorders in adulthood specifically:
Obesity
Type 2 diabetes
Other auto-immune diseases including:
Celiac disease
Inflammatory bowel disease
Are Beneficial Microbes Disappearing?
Recent research (Jarman JB et al., 2025) suggests 25% of US mothers no longer have detectable levels of beneficial species of Bifidobacterium to pass on to their child.
The researchers found that many babies today are missing key beneficial microbes - especially Bifidobacteria - at a critical moment of immune development.
To quote from the paper: "Of particular interest in the context of infant health is the disappearance of certain Bifidobacterium strains, cornerstone microbes associated with numerous health outcomes from the gut microbiome of many individuals in industrialized societies."
Some scientists fear that humanity may soon be approaching the point of no return, where these microbial "old friends" could be disappearing at such a rate they could even become extinct.
What’s The Solution?
The good news is that there is a relatively simple fix.
We believe if all parents understand why the transfer of beneficial microbes from mother to baby REALLY matters for a child's immune development, this will prompt parents to take positive action steps before, during and after birth to ensure their child receives the right set of beneficial microbes when it matters the most.
MYTH 1: Some people might say.... this science doesn't matter, because a C-section born baby has the same microbiome profile as a vaginally born baby after a year.
Whilst true that the gut microbiomes of a baby born by C-section and a baby born by vaginal birth look roughly the same after a year or two, a baby born by C-section with a disrupted gut microbiome can miss the "critical window" when a baby's immune system is optimally trained, resulting in a mal-educated immune system, with the potential for long-term health problems.
MYTH 2: Some people might say.... don't tell parents as it can make them feel guilty.
Up until now, most parents don't know there still is a job to be done after birth, to ensure their baby's gut microbiome is set up in the best possible way, however their baby is born, to ensure optimal immune development. If parents aren't told the action steps of what they can actually do to restore their baby's microbiome after cesarean, antibiotics or formula-feeding, and uninformed parents miss the "critical window" of opportunity, then parents are likely to feel much worse later, because they could have taken action when it counted.
Our babies need us to know this information!
This is more than a film.
This is a movement and a positive action plan to protect the next generations.
By empowering parents, healthcare professionals, and communities with knowledge about the microbiome, this film has the power to change the health trajectory of our entire species.
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—> Click here to watch a PREVIEW of The Microbirth Plan!
—> Click here (and scroll to the bottom) to purchase (3€ +tax) & watch the original MICROBIRTH Film (2014)!
You can see how the science has evolved since then and how the need for this information to be seen, shared & implemented is more prevalent than ever.