Abstract
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.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 06, 2020
Accepted:
January 30,
2020
Footnotes
PZ drafted the initial manuscript. NC critically revised the manuscript and both authors approved the final manuscript as submitted.
Identification
Copyright
© 2020 The British Infection Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
