Press Release: CU Medicine’s large-scale mother-baby study finds altered gut microbiome in pregnant mothers with gestational diabetes mellitus affects infants’ neurodevelopment

The prospective large-scale, longitudinal birth cohort study MOMmy (MOther-infant Microbiota transmission and its link to long terM health of babY), conducted by The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)’s Faculty of Medicine (CU Medicine), aims to examine the gut microbiota of pregnant mothers and babies to assess how early-life exposure can affect the child’s lifelong health and be harnessed to predict, prevent and treat disease. For the first time, the research team presented the gut microbiome trajectory of mothers with gestational diabetes  mellitus (GDM) throughout pregnancy and of infants during the first year of life. Results showed that mothers with GDM history have a distinct microbiome diversity and composition during the gestation period, and GDM leaves fingerprints on the infant’s gut microbiome for up to 12 months of age.

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