Infants born by vaginal delivery are colonized with maternal fecal microbes. Cesarean section (CS) birth disturbs mother-to-neonate transmission. In this study (NCT03568734), we evaluated whether disturbed intestinal microbiota development could be restored in term CS-born infants by postnatal, orally delivered fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). We recruited 17 mothers, of whom seven were selected after careful screening. Their infants received a diluted fecal sample from their own mothers, taken 3 weeks prior to delivery. All seven infants had an uneventful clinical course during the 3-month follow-up and showed no adverse effects. The temporal development of the fecal microbiota composition of FMT-treated CS-born infants no longer resembled that of untreated CS-born infants but showed significant similarity to that of vaginally born infants. This proof-of-concept study demonstrates that the intestinal microbiota of CS-born infants can be restored postnatally by maternal FMT. However, this should only be done after careful clinical and microbiological screening.

通过阴道分娩出生的婴儿被母体粪便微生物定植。剖宫产（CS）的出生干扰了母亲到新生儿的传播。在这项研究中（NCT03568734），我们评估了是否可以通过出生后口服粪便微生物菌群移植（FMT）来恢复CS足月儿的肠道微生物菌群发育。我们招募了17名母亲，经过仔细筛选后选出了7名母亲。他们的婴儿在分娩前3周从母亲那里获得了稀释的粪便样本。在7个月的随访中，所有7例婴儿的临床过程均正常，未显示不良反应。FMT治疗的CS出生婴儿的粪便菌群组成的时间变化不再类似于未经治疗的CS出生婴儿的粪便微生物组成，但与阴道出生的婴儿表现出明显的相似性。这项概念验证研究表明，母婴FMT可在出生后恢复CS出生婴儿的肠道菌群。但是，只有在经过仔细的临床和微生物筛选后才能进行此操作。