The microbiome of the infants gastrointestinal tract is not related to the microbiome of the mother’s vagina. An article about this was published in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology.
For a long time it was believed that the exchange of microbiota between the newborn and the mother occurs during birth, since the fetus is reliably isolated during pregnancy, and without bacteria, human digestion is extremely difficult.
Deborah Money of the University of British Columbia and her colleagues set out to find out by surveying more than 600 Canadian women and their children. A swab was taken from the mother’s vagina before delivery. Stool samples from infants were collected within 72 hours of birth, as well as within 10 days and three months after birth. At the same time, some of the participating women gave birth by cesarean section in which contact with the vagina was excluded.
Regardless of the mode of delivery, it turned out that the composition of the mother’s vaginal microbiome did not predict the composition of the infant’s stool microbiome at 10 days or three months after birth.
“We were able to show that the transfer of vaginal bacteria into the infant’s gut is limited, and that the mother’s vaginal microbiome does not contribute much to the bacterial community that develops in the infant’s gut after birth. In contrast, other sources such as breast milk and environmental exposure are likely to play a much larger role,” conclude the authors.
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