The Influence of Mother Nutrition on the Composition of Fatty Acid, Oligosacharides and Its Effect on Breast Milk Microbiome

The research subject

Health organizations around the world have determined that breastfeeding is the most critical source of nutrition for newborns in the first weeks and months of their lives. A mother's breast milk contains unique nutritious components and other nonnutritive elements that help promote healthy baby growth and development (1, 2). Recent studies show that a mother's breast milk contains components that vary from each specimen. There are great evidences that maternal and environmental factors have a strong influence on the composition of breast milk. Fatty acids, the second most common component found in breast milk, show extreme sensitivity to maternal nutrition (3, 4).

Latest studies show that breast milk also contains bacterial communities that may have health implications of newborn. The structure of these bacterial communities also varied greatly between subjects (5) .

In the research, we propose to investigate the connection between maternal nutrition, different fatty acids and their role in the growth and development of bacterial populations existing in breast milk.