Maternal Nutrition During Late Gestation and Lactation: Association With Immunity and the Inflammatory Response in the Offspring

Abstract

The immature immune system at birth and environmental stress increase the risk of infection in nursing pigs. Severe infection subsequently induces intestinal and respiratory diseases and even cause death of pigs. The nutritional and physiological conditions of sows directly affect the growth, development and disease resistance of the fetus and newborn. Many studies have shown that providing sows with nutrients such as functional oligosaccharides, oils, antioxidants, and trace elements could regulate immunity and the inflammatory response of piglets. Here, we reviewed the positive effects of certain nutrients on milk quality, immunoglobulin inflammatory response, oxidative stress, and intestinal microflora of sows, and further discuss the effects of these nutrients on immunity and the inflammatory response in the offspring.

Effects of Dietary Carbohydrases on Fecal Microbiome Composition of Lactating Sows and Their Piglets

“…Exogenous enzymes in swine diets improve the performance of growing pigs, especially in relation to factors such as NSP degradation, nutrient transit time, and subsequent changes to the gut microbial population [ 16 ]. The gastrointestinal tract of lactating piglets is particularly prone to being greatly affected by maternal nutritional status [ 17 ]. Previously, we showed that sows fed MC had less body weight loss, fewer white blood cells (WBC), and lower TGF-β1 expression during lactation than those fed CON [ 4 ].…”

Effect of yeast culture supplementation in sows during late gestation and lactation on growth performance, antioxidant properties, and intestinal microorganisms of offspring weaned piglets

“…Piglets form intestinal microorganisms through contact with the sow's birth canal, skin, feces, environmental microorganisms and by suckling milk (He et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2022). It was found that the breast milk microbiota constitutes the initial microbiota of the newborn piglets gut and plays a crucial role in regulating newborn piglets health (Wu et al, 2006;Chen et al, 2018;Li et al, 2022). Thus, maternal addition of yeast cultures may affect the gut microbiology of piglets by influencing the composition of breast milk and sow feces microbes.…”

The Ingestion of Dietary Prebiotic Alternatives during Lactation Promotes Intestinal Health by Modulation of Gut Microbiota

“…To further explore how the supplemental diet of PKE to lactating sow produced changes in the gut microbiota composition of sows and piglets, we sequenced the gut microbiota of sows and piglets and confirmed that dietary PKE changes the gut microbiota composition. It is also well known that the composition of maternal milk influences the formation of the gut microbiota of the offspring and therefore the maternal diet is important for both mother and offspring [ 26 ]. However, we discovered only subtle shifts in the gut microbiota composition in lactating sows between the CON and PKE groups, thereby implying a direct effect of the bacteria on sow metabolism rather than through the adjustment of the overall intestinal environment.…”