Maternal FMT in Cesarean-Born Infants - WGS sequencing of infants (1w to 1year) and maternal fecal samples

This project evaluated whether the normal intestinal microbiota development observed in vaginally born infants could be restored in CS-born infants by immediate postnatal, orally delivered fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) from their own mothers (NCT03568734). Recruitment of the mothers-to-be took place after the antenatal visit at 33-34 gestational weeks at the Helsinki University Hospital for the assessment of the method of delivery in the period of October 2017 untill June 2018. Mothers were selected after careful screening for health, clinical parameters and presence of pathogens. Their infants received in the first breast milk feeding a single dose of a diluted fecal sample of their own mothers that had been taken 3 weeks prior to delivery, analyzed and stored appropriately. All infants had an uneventful clinical course during the three-months follow-up, during which fecal samples were collected. The samples were collected by the parents at home and samples were stored at home at -20?C until being brought to the lab in frozen form. Upon receival the samples were immediately stored at -80?C until processing. Fecal DNA was generated by repeated beat beating method and stool WGS metagenomes were generated using Illumina Nextera Flex or iGenomX Riptide High Throughput Rapid Library Prep Kit and Illumina HiSeq and NovaSeq 6000 sequencing platforms respectively. The study protocols have been approved and supervised by the Helsinki University Hospital and approved by the ethical committee of the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS/2338/2016). The study was performed in accordance with the principles of the Helsinki Declaration. The guardians have provided an informed, written consent. participation is voluntary and the participants can withdraw from the study at any point.