Kyushu University verifies that oral bacteria are "shared between mother and child."

Oral bacteria are known to be responsible for dental caries and periodontal disease but have recently been found to also lead to diseases throughout the body, such as in the respiratory and digestive systems. A research group led by Assistant Professor Shinya Kageyama and Professor Yoshihisa Yamashita of the Faculty of Dentistry at Kyushu University investigated the amount of oral bacteria shared between infants and mothers and revealed that it is strongly related to infant nutrition methods. Their findings were published in mBio.

The group investigated the oral bacteria of 448 pairs of infants and their mothers at 4-month checkups with high accuracy in Higashi-ku, Fukuoka City and examined the relationship between the bacteria of parents and children. Oral bacteria from the mothers were detected in the oral cavity of most infants. It was also found that infants shared more oral bacteria with their own mothers than with unrelated mothers. Interestingly, mother-derived oral bacteria were significantly higher in those fed with artificial milk than breast milk. Maternally derived oral bacteria are transferred to the infant's oral cavity, suggesting that their colonization rates differ by nutritional methods. These findings provide basic data that clarify the impact of the early establishment of maternal oral bacteria on child health.