Abstract
Human milk provides a continuous supply of good bacteria to the infant’s gut, which contributes to the maturation of the digestive and immunological systems in the develo** infant. Nonetheless, the origin of bacterial populations in milk is unknown, and they have been suggested to come from maternal skin, the infant’s mouth, and/or endogenously from the maternal digestive tract via a mechanism involving immune cells. Understanding the composition, roles, and assembly of the human milk microbiota has significant consequences not only for the development of the infant gut microbiota but also for breast health, as dysbiosis in milk bacteria can cause mastitis. Furthermore, host, microbial, medical, and environmental factors may influence the composition of the human milk microbiome, potentially affecting the mother–infant relationship.
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Acknowledgments
Saqib Hassan thanks the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for ICMR Research Associateship (Project ID: 2019-6981).
Ishfaq Hassan Mir gratefully acknowledges the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi, India, for financial assistance in the form of a Senior research fellowship [ICMR-SRF; S.No. 45/17/2022-/BIO/BMS].
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Hassan, S. et al. (2023). The Human Breast Milk Microbiome: Establishment and Resilience of Microbiota over the Mother–Infant Relationship. In: Veera Bramhachari, P. (eds) Human Microbiome in Health, Disease, and Therapy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5114-7_9
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