Maternal and postnatal factors role on child health and development: lessons learned from animal models and clinical studies

Authors: Yeruva, Laxmi

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/3/2024
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Our program goal is to provide scientific evidence on how maternal and postnatal factors are critical in the prevention of chronic disease development. Specifically, the focus is to understand the role of several maternal and postnatal factors that impact child health and development. Studies from our team have shown that maternal factors such as plant versus animal protein intake impact human milk composition (i.e., microRNAs) and these small RNAs have an association with infants’ gut microbiota composition and growth outcomes. Also, maternal obesity plays a role in inflammation markers expression during pregnancy and associates with maternal and infant gut microbiota composition. During the postnatal period, our findings from animal model and clinical studies highlight that human milk feeding impacts gastrointestinal tract morphology, microbiota composition, metabolite profile, inflammatory cell signaling and regulates microbiota function. In addition, we have demonstrated that different gut microbiota of infants’ programs gastrointestinal track cell signaling, and immune response differently and also varies with and without milk bioactives (i.e., human milk oligosaccharides). In summary, various maternal and postnatal factors interaction with the host and the likely mechanisms behind the positive health outcomes will be highlighted.