The development of the infant faecal flora was studied over the first three months of life in infants receiving breast milk, a modern adapted formula and adaptations of this formula. Breast-fed infants developed a flora rich in Bifidobacterium sp. Facultative anaerobes were ubiquitous, but in relatively small numbers within the diet group. Other obligate anaerobes, such as Clostridium sp. and Bacteriodes sp. were rarely isolated. Standard formula produced a flora rich in bifidobacteria, but the growth of facultative organisms was not suppressed by this diet. Clostridium sp. and Bacteroides sp. were more common in this feeding group. After the addition of lactoferrin at 10 mg/100 ml to the formula diet, a flora similar to that of the standard formula-fed babies was achieved. Lactoferrin at 100 mg/100 ml was able to establish a "bifidus flora" in half of the babies given this formula, but only at age three months. Clostridium sp. and Bacteroides sp. were common faecal isolates from babies receiving both the lactoferrin diets.
Fifty-five healthy, full-term babies were studied to determine the age at which methanogens establish as part of the developing intestinal microflora. The infants were stratified into diet groups according to whether they were fed breast milk, formula or formula supplemented with different amounts of an iron-binding protein. established, methanogens were rarely lost from the gut microflora. Diet did not appear to influence colonisation by methanogens directly. Acquisition of methanogens by I wk of age was associated with the equally early establishment of a relatively complex faecal microflora characterised by higher concentrations of bacteroides, clostridia and enterobacteria.
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