Researchers call for more analysis of maternal health, breast milk, and infant development

Researchers writing in a new perspective piece are calling for more mechanistic insight into how mothers' health affects the nutritional content of breast milk, and how this in turn affects infant health. These three components exist in a "triad," the researchers write, adding that elucidating the underlying mechanisms — for instance, by analyzing breast milk components and the gut microbiota of infants and mothers — could allow health care providers to make better predictions about health outcomes as well as better recommendations for preventing disease. "Such efforts will not only provide new appreciation of the remarkable properties of nature's first food," the authors write, but also offer insight into how infants around the world grow.