First Foods and the Infant Gut Microbiome
First complementary foods (CFs) are important in the development of the infant gut microbiome. This study was a pilot, randomized, controlled trial to evaluate the effect of different first CFs on the infant gut microbiome. Infants enrolled were vaginally delivered, exclusively human milk fed, and had no prior CF exposure. Infants were randomized to one of four groups (oatmeal cereal, beef, carrot, prune) (NCT05492253) (n=43). Infants were fed the randomized food (with human milk) for one week, followed by oatmeal cereal for another week. Daily stool samples were collected and sequenced via full-length V1-V9 16S rRNA sequencing.