Babies receive good bacteria from mum's gut via breast milk

Scientists have found that 'good' bacteria reach babies' digestive systems from their mother's gut through breast milk.

Professor Christophe Lacroix at the Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health, ETH-Zurich, Switzerland, said that a healthy community of bacteria in the gut of both mother and baby is really important for baby's gut health and immune system development.

The Zurich team found the same strains of Bifidobacterium breve and several types of Clostridium bacteria, which are important for colonic health, in breast milk, and maternal and/or neonatal faeces.

Strains found in breast milk may be involved in establishing a critical nutritional balance in the baby's gut and may be important to prevent intestinal disorders.

Professor Lacroix said that they are not sure of the route the bacteria take from gut to breast milk but, we have used culture, isolation, sequencing and fingerprinting methods to confirm that they are definitely the same strains.

The study has been published in Environmental Microbiology, which is a journal of the Society for Applied Microbiology (SfAM).