Can changing the diet of a breastfeeding mother impact the infant gut microbiome?

Quick Summary: A recent review suggests that yes, potentially, you might be able to change the infant gut microbiome through changing the mother’s diet whilst she is breastfeeding.

If you change the diet of a breastfeeding mother, can this change the infant gut microbiome?

Surprisingly (at least to me) there hasn’t been much research on this subject, so this recent review paper by Sindi A.S. et al., (2021) provides a really interesting review of previous animal and human studies.

And it comes to the conclusion that yes, this is a plausible hypothesis — that changing the mother’s diet during lactation can influence the infant gut microbiome.

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About the review paper

The review paper by Sindi A.S. et al., (2021) was published in FEMS Microbiology Reviews in February 2021.

It reviews previous animal and human studies and explores the hypothesis that changing the breastfeeding mother’s diet can potentially change the infant gut microbiome.

As this paper explains, one observational paper previously looked at the diet during lactation and how this can affect the infant gut microbiome.