Knowledge of the Digestive Microflora: Evaluation of Breastfeeding on the Establishment of the Gut Microbiota of the Newborn

Abstract

At birth, the newborn has no bacteria in its gut. This last is rapidly colonized by microbial flora (microbiota) from, mainly of the mother and environment. The main objective is the study of the influence of breastfeeding in the establishment of the intestinal microbial flora in the newborn. The secondary objective of this work was to analyze the bacterial diversity in feces of breast-fed infants and to compare it with that of formula-fed ones. Five pairs of mother-child and 5 fed formula have participated in the study. The Samples were taken at 1, 7, 30 and 90 days and plated out on various culture media. The present study shows that breast milk plays a major role in the development of the intestinal microbiota of the child. The results of this comparative study showed that the fecal matter of a mother breast-fed infants are more rich in probiotics and less rich in pathogenic bacteria that infants receiving infant formula.