Maternal gut microbiome identified as key factor in shaping infant health and eczema risk

A groundbreaking study reveals that the mother’s gut microbiome is the primary source of early infant microbial colonisation, influencing long-term health outcomes and potentially linked to eczema development.

A study published in Nature suggests that a mother’s gut may be the main launch point for an infant’s microbiome, with delivery method and feeding practices also playing a major role in how that ecosystem develops in the first year of life. The research followed 714 mother-infant pairs in the Dutch Lifelines NEXT cohort and analysed 4,526 faecal samples collected from pregnancy through to 12 months after birth.

The investigators found that strains more common in the maternal gut were more likely to appear in infants and tended to last longer once established. By contrast, transmission from the vaginal microbiome and breast milk seemed to happen less often. The findings point to the maternal gut as the strongest reservoir for early infant colonisation, while also showing that birth mode and feeding choice continue to shape the microbiome throughout infancy.

The paper also reported an association between the maternal gut microbiome and infant eczema. Mothers of babies who later developed eczema had lower gut microbial diversity, and the pattern remained after accounting for smoking history and family history of allergic disease. The authors said the result is new and needs replication, and they stressed that the mechanism is still unclear.

Researchers noted that maternal gut composition changed only modestly during pregnancy and after birth, with diet, infections and pre-pregnancy smoking among the influences seen. A related review in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology also underlined the importance of the maternal gut in the first 1,000 days of life, while warning that much more work is needed before the findings can be turned into nutrition strategies or clinical advice.