The Change in Intestinal Lactobacillus Count among Healthy Neonates

Lee, Hyun Joo; Lee, Hyun Ji; Cho, Su Jin; Seo, Jung Wan; Lee, Seung Joo; Park, Eun Ae

Abstract

PURPOSE
Enhancing overall health by preventive and therapeutic use of probiotics has shown great promise on inflammatory, infectious, neoplastic disorders, allergies, et al. To attain preliminary data for the use of probiotics, we have studied the change in intestinal flora, Lactobacillus count among healthy, full term neonates.
METHODS
Fresh stool samples were collected on the 2nd or 5th day of life in forty healthy full term neonates born at Ewha Womans University Hospital. Geographic factors, feeding type and gastrointestinal manifestations such as vomiting or diarrhea were recorded. Stool samples were innoculated for 48 hours in a Lactobacillus selective media in anaerobic conditions at 37degrees C, and the Lactobacillus colonies were counted.
RESULTS
The lactobacillus colony count(LCC) was significantly higher in the exclusively breast milk fed neonates than those fed with a mixture of breast milk and formula(P=0.0017). LCC was significantly higher in the stool samples collected on the 5th postnatal day than the 2nd postnatal day(P= 0.0059). There were no significant differences in the LCC by sex or delivery type, and there were no significant correlations in the LCC according to the gestational age, birth weight, frequency of breast feeding, amount of milk feeding or frequency of defecation.
CONCLUSION
These results suggest that breast feeding provides a more favorable environment than mixed feeding with formula for the Lactobacillus growth, and LCC increases with time after birth. Considering the fact that one of the main causes of necrotizing enterocolitis is the disruption of intestinal normal flora, the result of this study can be used as a preliminary data for investigating the effect of probiotics in neonates.