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Valerie Verhasselt MD, PhD Head, Immunology and Breastfeeding 0402997617 Valerie.verhasselt@thekids.org.au Head, Immunology and Breastfeeding @
Understanding of newborn immune ontogeny in the first week of life will enable age-appropriate strategies for safeguarding vulnerable newborns against infectious diseases. Here we conducted an observational study exploring the immunological profile of infants longitudinally throughout their first week of life.
Human milk is rich in immuno-modulatory factors that have the potential to shape immune development and influence allergy risk in children. In this article, we describe how breast milk may contribute to making the infant less prone to developing allergies.
Valerie Verhasselt MD, PhD Head, Immunology and Breastfeeding 0402997617 Valerie.verhasselt@thekids.org.au Head, Immunology and Breastfeeding @
Dynamic molecular changes in early life follow a robust ontogeny as the infant immune system adapts to the demands of its new environment. Studies of plasma immunomodulatory cytokines and chemokines have previously demonstrated ontogenetic patterns of immune development across the first week of life. However, how plasma cytokine and chemokines concentrations evolve over the first 4 months of life remains unknown.
Food allergy affects families' quality of life, can be lifelong and life-threatening, urging the identification of early modifiable risk factors. Formula feeding in the first days of life may increase the risk of cow's milk allergy, a risk often attributed to cow's milk allergens exposure. Early formula feeding also reduces the colostrum intake, the first 3 days' milk, which is rich in bioactive compounds critical for immune and gut health. This study investigates whether partial colostrum feeding increases the risk of food allergy beyond cow's milk.
Although many mothers initiate breastfeeding, supplementation with human-milk substitutes (formula) during the birth hospitalization is common and has been associated with early breastfeeding cessation. Colostrum hand expressed in the last few weeks before birth, known as antenatal colostrum expression (ACE), can be used instead of human-milk substitutes. However, evidence is lacking on the efficacy of ACE on breastfeeding outcomes and in non-diabetic mothers.
First-of-its-kind findings show that newborns exclusively fed colostrum in their first 72 hours of life were five times less likely to develop a peanut allergy by 12-18 months, and 11 times less likely to develop multiple food allergies (such as egg or cow’s milk) compared with infants who also received formula
Previous reports suggested that food proteins present in human milk (HM) may trigger symptoms in allergic children during breastfeeding, but existing evidence has never been reviewed systematically.
We investigated the genetic and epigenetic regulation of the UBASH3A gene and its association with early-onset sepsis. Using matched whole blood DNA methylation, gene expression, genotypes, and immune cell counts from the EPIC-HIPC newborn cohort, we report that promoter methylation was negatively correlated with ontogenetic changes in UBASH3A gene expression and circulating CD3+ T-cell numbers.