The Perturbation of Infant Gut Microbiota Caused by Cesarean Delivery Is Partially Restored by Exclusive BreastfeedingOriginal paper
Karen Pendergrass is a microbiome researcher specializing in microbiome-targeted interventions (MBTIs). She systematically analyzes scientific literature to identify microbial patterns, develop hypotheses, and validate interventions. As the founder of the Microbiome Signatures Database, she bridges microbiome research with clinical practice. In 2012, based on her own investigative research, she became the first documented case of FMT for Celiac Disease, four years before the first published case study.
Read MoreWhat was studied?
Researchers examined how delivery mode, feeding pattern, and postnatal antibiotic exposure shape the infant gut microbiome at 6 weeks postpartum. The cross-sectional study drew on 120 infants at a single center in China.
How was it studied?
Fecal samples were analyzed by Illumina sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene V3-V4 regions. Clinical data came from medical records and a questionnaire, and infants were grouped by delivery mode and feeding pattern for comparison.
What did they find?
Cesarean delivered infants had a significantly different gut microbial community structure than vaginally delivered infants, with reduced relative abundance of Bifidobacterium. Among cesarean delivered infants, those exclusively breastfed showed smaller within- and between-group UniFrac distances from the vaginal-birth reference group than mixed-fed infants. Enterococcus, Veillonella, and Faecalibacterium abundances differed between cesarean breastfed and cesarean mixed-fed infants, with the breastfed group resembling the vaginal-birth reference. No significant effect of postnatal antibiotic exposure on microbial composition or diversity was detected.
Why it matters
The findings suggest exclusive breastfeeding may partially counteract the gut microbiota disruption associated with cesarean delivery in early infancy. This supports feeding pattern as a modifiable factor alongside delivery mode in shaping early microbiome establishment.