Fact-based Nutrition for Infants and Lactating Mothers

The genotype, metabolome, and microbiota as well as the HM composition (i.e., macronutrients, fatty acids, vitamins, human milk oligosaccharides, and steroids) are characterized. Portable sensor prototypes for the analysis of HM and urine are benchmarked. Additionally, maternal psychosocial status is measured at the beginning of the study and at month six, including social support, family functioning, perceived stress, anxiety, and depression symptoms, and traumatic life events. Mother-infant postpartum bonding and parental stress is also examined. At six months (corrected age for preterm groups), infant neurodevelopment scales are applied. Mother's concerns and attitudes to breastfeeding are also registered through a specific questionnaire at CEN/RBW and six months. An additional assessment at two years (corrected age for PI) is conducted, in order to study long-term effects on neurodevelopment. Current knowledge on the importance of diet and other environmental factors for infant growth, health, and development is limited and donor-matching at HM banks is frequently only based on gestational age and total protein content of HM. NUTRISHIELD provides an in-depth longitudinal study of the mother-infant-microbiota triad combining multiple biological matrices, newly developed analytical methods, and ad-hoc designed sensor prototypes with a wide range of clinical outcome measures. Data obtained from this study will be used to train a machine-learning algorithm for providing dietary advice to lactating mothers and will be implemented in a user-friendly platform based on a combination of user-provided information and biomarker analysis. A better understanding of the factors affecting the milk's composition, together with the health implications for infants plays an important role in developing improved strategies of nutraceutical management in infant care.

Inclusion criteria

• Acceptance of the mother to participate and sign an informed consent form
• A gestational age < 32 weeks for the group of PI and > 37 weeks for the group of TI
• Exclusive consumption (i.e., >80% v/v of total intake) of either OMM or DHM.

Exclusion criteria

• Non-compliance with any of the inclusion criteria
• The requirement of a special diet for the mother (e.g., celiac disease, diabetes) or maternal consumption of probiotics
• The need of intestinal surgery, severe congenital malformations, or chromosomopathies of the infant
• Mother's residence outside the Valencian Community
• Severe language barriers hampering the collection of necessary data from mothers not speaking Spanish and/or English