Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Jul;61(5):640-649.
doi: 10.1002/dev.21837. Epub 2019 Mar 25.

Microbiota of newborn meconium is associated with maternal anxiety experienced during pregnancy

Jianzhong Hu  1 , Jenny Ly  2 , Wei Zhang  2   3 , Yonglin Huang  4 , Vivette Glover  5 , Inga Peter  1 , Yasmin L Hurd  6   7 , Yoko Nomura  2   4   6
Affiliations

Microbiota of newborn meconium is associated with maternal anxiety experienced during pregnancy

Jianzhong Hu et al. Dev Psychobiol. 2019 Jul.

Abstract

Little is known about whether a mother's psychological state during pregnancy influences her offspring's microbiome. This study examined whether maternal anxiety, depression, and stress during pregnancy is associated with the diversity of meconium microbiome, the first internal discharge, in 75 newborns from an existing birth cohort study. The meconium microbiome was profiled using multibarcode16S rRNA sequencing at V3-V4 hypervariable region followed by taxonomic assignment to the green gene 16S references at 97% similarity and diversity analysis at the genus level. Results showed that the meconium contained diversified microbiota, and greater pregnancy-related anxiety was significantly associated with a less diverse meconium microbiota community (p = 0.001). At the specific taxa level, greater pregnancy-related anxiety was correlated with a lower level of the Enterococcaceae family (p = 2e-4, Spearman rho = -0.43). These findings support a significant role of prenatal maternal mood in the early-life bacteria colonization of their offspring.

Keywords: gut-brain axis; in utero programming; maternal antenatal mood and anxiety; meconium microbiome; pregnancy-related anxiety.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

None of the authors has any conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Relative abundances of dominant bacterial taxa in meconium samples
Box plots showed the mean and variance of relative abundance of bacterial taxa at Phylum, Family and Genus levels. Color represents the classification at phylum level.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Association of meconium microbiota and the pregnancy-related anxiety
[2A] Overall meconium microbiota dissimilarities presented by NMDS plots. The level of total pregnancy-related anxiety was defined as low (PRAQ-total score <6) or high (PRAQ-total score ≥6). P-value was obtained from PERMANOVA test using Bray-Curtis distance matrices as dependent variable and the continuous PRAQ-total score as independent variable. [2B] The inverse correlation between the level of total pregnancy-related anxiety and the relative abundance of Enterobacteriaceae genus. The linear fit line (blue) with 95% confidence interval (gray area) was taken from the linear regression model.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Aagaard K, Ma J, Antony KM, Ganu R, Petrosino J, & Versalovic J (2014). The Placenta Harbors a Unique Microbiome HHS Public Access. Sci Transl Med May, 21(6237), 237–65. 10.1126/scitranslmed.3008599 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Abrahamsson TR, Jakobsson HE, Andersson AF, Björkstén B, Engstrand L, & Jenmalm MC (2012). Low diversity of the gut microbiota in infants with atopic eczema. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 129(2), 434–440.e2 10.1016/j.jaci.2011.10.025 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Azad MB, Konya T, Guttman DS, Field CJ, Sears MR, HayGlass KT, … Kozyrskyj AL (2015). Infant gut microbiota and food sensitization: associations in the first year of life. Clinical & Experimental Allergy, 45(3), 632–643. 10.1111/cea.12487 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bailey MT, Lubach GR, & Coe CL (2004). Prenatal stress alters bacterial colonization of the gut in infant monkeys. Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, 38(4), 414–421. 10.1097/00005176-200404000-00009 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Barnes LLLB, Harp D, & Jung WWS (2002). Reliability Generalization of Scores on the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 62(4), 603–618. 10.1177/0013164402062004005 - DOI

Publication types