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Breast milk microbiota: A review of the factors that influence composition

  • Zimmermann, Petra Department of Paediatrics, Fribourg Hospital HFR and Faculty of Science and Medicine, University of Fribourg, Switzerland - Department of Paediatrics, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia - Infectious Diseases Research Group, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Parkville, Australia - Infectious Diseases Unit, The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
  • Curtis, Nigel Department of Paediatrics, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia - Infectious Diseases Research Group, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Parkville, Australia - Infectious Diseases Unit, The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
    01.07.2020
Published in:
  • Journal of Infection. - 2020, vol. 81, no. 1, p. 17–47
English Breastfeeding is associated with considerable health benefits for infants. Aside from essential nutrients, immune cells and bioactive components, breast milk also contains a diverse range of microbes, which are important for maintaining mammary and infant health. In this review, we summarise studies that have investigated the composition of the breast milk microbiota and factors that might influence it. We identified 44 studies investigating 3105 breast milk samples from 2655 women. Several studies reported that the bacterial diversity is higher in breast milk than infant or maternal faeces. The maximum number of each bacterial taxonomic level detected per study was 58 phyla, 133 classes, 263 orders, 596 families, 590 genera, 1300 species and 3563 operational taxonomic units. Furthermore, fungal, archaeal, eukaryotic and viral DNA was also detected. The most frequently found genera were Staphylococcus, Streptococcus Lactobacillus, Pseudomonas, Bifidobacterium, Corynebacterium, Enterococcus, Acinetobacter, Rothia, Cutibacterium, Veillonella and Bacteroides. There was some evidence that gestational age, delivery mode, biological sex, parity, intrapartum antibiotics, lactation stage, diet, BMI, composition of breast milk, HIV infection, geographic location and collection/feeding method influence the composition of the breast milk microbiota. However, many studies were small and findings sometimes contradictory. Manipulating the microbiota by adding probiotics to breast milk or artificial milk offers an exciting avenue for future interventions to improve infant health.
Faculty
Faculté des sciences et de médecine
Department
Master en médecine
Language
  • English
Classification
Biological sciences
License
License undefined
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/308684
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