Modeling transfer of vaginal microbiota from mother to infant in early life

Early life microbiota has been linked to the development of chronic inflammatory diseases. It has been hypothesized that maternal vaginal microbiota is an important initial seeding source and therefore can have lifelong effects on disease risk. To understand maternal vaginal microbiota’s role in seeding the child’s microbiota and the extent of delivery mode-dependent transmission, we studied 700 mother-child dyads from the COPSAC2010 cohort.

The maternal vaginal microbiota was evaluated in the third trimester and compared with the children’s fecal and airway microbiota.

The vaginal samples displayed known stable community state types and only 1:6 changed over time. Only one OTU was significantly transferred to children’s fecal compartment, but an inflated number had positive transfer odds. A few taxonomic families showed early transfer enrichment to vaginally-born children, indicating vertical transfer, while half of the observed transfer effects were delivery mode independent enrichment with attenuating strength over time, indicating a common reservoir.