Mother’s Milk & Baby’s Bacteria: Discoveries from the CHILD Cohort Study

The CHILD Cohort Study (www.childstudy.ca) is following 3500 Canadian families from pregnancy onwards to understand the developmental origins of chronic diseases. We have shown that breastfeeding is associated with reduced risks of childhood asthma and obesity, and these beneficial effects appear to be partly mediated by the infant gut microbiome. Current research in the Azad Lab (www.azadlab.ca) at the Manitoba Interdisciplinary Lactation Centre (www.milcresearch.com) is focused on understanding how breastfeeding practices and breast milk components (including microbes, oligosaccharides, fatty acids, hormones and cytokines) shape the developing infant microbiome and contribute to health and disease trajectories in the CHILD cohort.