Earliest Culturable Bacteria to Colonize the Intestinal Colon of Neonates Born in Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Irrua, Edo State, Nigeria

The gut microbiome is said to be associated with human health and the understanding of bacteria colonization of the gut ecosystem is crucial to our knowledge on disease development in humans. This study was conducted to establish the earliest bacteria that colonize the intestinal colon of neonates born in Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital (ISTH) Irrua, Edo State Nigeria and to determine the antibiogram of these isolates. Stool samples were collected at time interval of less than 10 hrs, greater than 10 hrs and after 18 hrs. The samples were processed using standard microbiological methods and Antibiotic susceptibility was done by disc diffusion method. The results revealed that of the 77 isolates, the frequencies of occurrence were Escherichia coli 51 (67.5%), Proteus mirabilis 13 (16.9%), Enterobacter aerogens. 8 (9.1%), Citrobacter freundii 3 (3.9%) and Serratia marcescens 2 (2.6%). Escherichia coli was most prevalent accounting for 67.5% of the isolates. The results also showed statistically that comparing the mode of delivery to the mode of nutrition, the mode of delivery (P<0.05) determines the colonization pattern of the earliest bacteria in the intestinal colon of neonates but the mode of nutrition (P>0.05) does not. The results also show that the meconium is sterile and colonization only begins from 10 hours after birth.%). All isolates from the different neonatal stool samples showed different susceptibility patterns to the antibiotics used. Escherichia coli was most resistant to Gentamycin, Proteus mirabilis was most resistant to Cloxacillin , Enterobacter aerogens and Citrobacter freundii to Ofloxacin, and Serratia marcescens was most resistant to Ceftazidime.