The intestinal bacteria community known as the intestinal microbiome is vital for human digestion, metabolism, and resistance to colonization by pathogens. The composition of the intestinal microbiome in infants and young children varies greatly in the first three years of life. Scientists have found out exactly how the mother passes the first intestinal microbiome to the baby.

Scientists from the University of Alabama in Birmingham used the fingerprint method for the microbiome to report that an individual mosaic of microbial strains is transmitted to the infant's intestinal microbiome from the mother during childbirth (vaginal). They described this transfer in detail by analyzing existing metagenomic databases of fecal samples from mother-child couples, and by analyzing the transmission of female mice to calves in a microbial or gnotobiotic mouse model.

“The analysis shows that multiple strains of maternal bacteria — some of which are not found in maternal feces — can be transmitted during childbirth to create a diverse bacterial community of the baby’s intestines,” says Casey Morrow, professor at the Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, University of Alabama. “Our analysis provides a new understanding of the origin of bacterial strains in the complex microbial community of infants.”.

The significance of discovery for science.

The results of the study confirm the need to review the contribution of various maternal bacteria to the children's intestinal microbial community..

“The constellation of bacterial strains that we found in children inherited from the mother was different in each mother-child pair. Given the recognized role of the microbiome in metabolic diseases, obesity and type 2 diabetes, the results of the study may further explain the child’s susceptibility to metabolic diseases found in the mother. ”.

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