Background: About 25% of women in the United States are obese prior to becoming pregnant. Although there is some knowledge about the relationship between the gastrointestinal microbiota and obesity, little is known about the relationship between pre-pregnancy obesity and the gastrointestinal microbiota in pregnancy or its impact on infant gut microbiota. However, the composition of the gut microbiota early in life may influence childhood health. Thus, the objective of this research was to identify associations between maternal pre-pregnancy obesity and the pregnancy (n = 39) or early infancy (n = 39) microbiotas.
Results: Fecal bacterial communities from overweight women had lower microbiota diversity (Chao1: p = 0.02; inverse Simpson: p = 0.05; Shannon: p = 0.02) than communities from normal weight or obese women. The within-group microbiota composition of overweight women differed from those of normal and obese women at the genus and phylum levels (p = 0.003 and p = 0.02, respectively). Pre-pregnancy overweight women had higher abundances of Bacteroides and lower Phascolarctobacterium than women who were normal weight or obese prior to becoming pregnant. Normal weight women had lower abundances of Acidaminococcus and Dialister than overweight and obese women. Infant community composition tended to differ in membership (Sorensen index) by maternal pre-pregnancy BMI category, and significantly differed by delivery mode and breastfeeding exclusivity (p = 0.06, p = 0.001, p = 0.008, respectively). Infants from normal weight women had lower abundances of Megasphaera than infants from overweight or obese women. Streptococcus was lowest in infants from overweight women, and Staphylococcus was lowest in infants from obese women.
Conclusion: Maternal and infant microbiotas are associated with and might be affected by maternal pre-pregnancy BMI. Future work should determine if there are also functional differences in the infant microbiome, if those functional differences are related to maternal pre-pregnancy BMI, and whether differences in composition or traits persist over time.