The sterile womb paradigm is an enduring premise in biology that human infants are born
sterile. Recent studies suggest that infants incorporate an initial microbiome before birth and�…

The acquisition and development of the infant microbiome are key to establishing a healthy
host-microbiome symbiosis. The maternal microbial reservoir is thought to play a crucial role�…

After more than a century of active research, the notion that the human fetal environment is
sterile and that the neonate's microbiome is acquired during and after birth was an accepted�…

Several healthy developmental processes such as pregnancy, fetal development, and infant
development include a multitude of physiological changes: weight gain, hormonal, and�…

While critical for normal development, the exact timing of establishment of the intestinal
microbiome is unknown. For example, although preterm labor and birth have been�…

For more than a century, the prenatal environment was considered sterile. Over the last few
years, findings obtained with next-generation sequencing approaches from samples of the�…

The human microbiome, the collective genome of the microbial community that is on and
within us, has recently been mapped. The initial characterization of healthy subjects has�…

The recent technical progress and enormous efforts to unravel the manifold interactions of
the microbiota with the host's organism have provided striking and unforeseen insights. This�…

Despite great medical advances in preventing maternal and infant mortality in the past
century, one issue remains unresolved: why do so many women give birth prematurely? A�…

The existence of a placental microbiota and in utero colonization of the fetus have been the
subjects of recent debate. The objective of this study was to determine whether the placental�…