Milk matters: seeding gut ecosystems and shaping microbiota rivalries

Maternal milk contains its own diverse microbiome, which has been hypothesized to colonize the infant gut during breastfeeding; however, the dynamics of this process are not well understood, particularly among very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) infants. A recent study published in <i>Cell Reports Medicine</i> by Shama <i>et al.</i> identifies novel dose-dependent relationships between maternal milk microbiota and infant gut microbiota in a cohort of VLBW infants and further explores the potential impact of infant feeding practices and antibiotic use on these microbial colonization dynamics.