Our gut microbiome an ecosystem of microbes that live in our digestive tract plays an essential role in human health. is the first to specifically explore the gut health of newborns in the pandemic. It revealed significant differences in the microbiome development of babies born during lockdown periods when compared to pre-pandemic babies. Babies born during lockdown also had lower than expected rates of allergic conditions such as food allergies.

The findings highlighted gut health benefits for pandemic babies arising from the unique environment of lockdown including lower rates of infection and consequent antibiotic use and increased duration of breastfeeding. The newborns were found to have more of the beneficial microbes acquired after birth from their mother. These maternal microbes could be playing a protective role against allergic diseases.

Professor Liam O’Mahony Principal Investigator at APC Microbiome Ireland and Professor of Immunology at University College Cork is joint senior author. He added: While we all start life sterile communities of beneficial microbes that inhabit our gut develop over the first years of life. We took the opportunity to study microbiome development in infants raised during the early COVID-19 era when strict social distancing restrictions were in place as the complexity of early life exposures was reduced and this facilitated a more accurate identification of the key early life exposures. Prior to this study it has been difficult to fully determine the relative contribution of these multiple environmental exposures and dietary factors on early life microbiome development.

One fascinating outcome is that due to reduced human exposures and protection from infection only 17% of infants required an antibiotic by one year of age which correlated with higher levels of beneficial bacteria such as bifidobacteria. The study has provided a rich repository of data which we will continue to analyse and investigate in the future.

Association between Gut Microbiota Development and Allergy in Infants Born during Pandemic-Related Social Distancing Restrictions was carried out in collaboration with University College Cork University of Helsinki University of Colorado Karolinska Institute Stockholm Children’s Health Ireland Rotunda Hospital and The Coombe Hospital.

Source: https://www.ucc.ie/en/apc/news/apc-news/new-apc-research-reveals-that-lockdowns-had-an-impact-on-gut-microbes-and-allergies-in-newborns.html