The microbiota of the mother at birth and its influence on the emerging infant oral microbiota from birth to 1 year of age: a cohort study.

Background

The acquisition of microbial communities and the influence of delivery mode on the oral microbiota of the newborn infant remains poorly characterised.

Methods

A cohort of pregnant women were enrolled in the study (n = 84). All infants were born full term, by Spontaneous vaginal delivery (SVD) or by Caesarean section (CS). At delivery a saliva sample along with a vaginal/skin sample from the mother. Saliva samples were the taken from the infant within one week of birth, and at week 4, week 8, 6 months and 1 year of age. We used high-throughput sequencing of V4-V5 region 16S rRNA amplicons to compare the microbiota of all samples.

Results

The vaginal microbiota had a lower alpha diversity than the skin microbiota of the mother, while the infant oral microbiota diversity remained relatively stable from birth to 8 weeks of age. The oral microbiota of the neonate differed by birth modality up to 1 week of age (p < 0.05), but birth modality did not have any influence on the infant oral microbiota beyond this age.

Conclusions

We conclude thatbirth mode does not have an effect on the infant oral microbiota beyond 4 weeks of age, and the oral microbiota of infants continues to develop until 1 year of age.