Figure 5.

Dose-response relationships between bacterial intakes from mother’s milk and their concentrations in infant stools

(A) Relationships between cumulative 3-day milk bacterial intakes of commonly shared taxa and their concentrations in corresponding infant stools were assessed using unadjusted linear mixed-effects models. Sample pairs were included in these models if both milk and stool contained the respective taxa, and p values were adjusted using a Benjamini-Hochberg false discovery rate. Solid lines represent the mean and shaded areas represent the 95% confidence interval. (B) Relationship between the cumulative 3-day total bacterial intake from mother’s milk and the total bacterial concentration in stool, as described in (A). (C) Summary of all p values from unadjusted linear mixed-effects models in (A) and (B) in addition to models stratified by postnatal period and feeding variables of interest. p values from the main effects were FDR-adjusted to account for multiple comparisons. (D) Statistically significant relationships between cumulative 3-day intakes of total bacteria and commonly shared taxa with corresponding concentrations in infant stools, stratified by postnatal period and feeding variables of interest. Abbreviations: NS, non-significant; FDR, false discovery rate; MOM, mother’s milk; HMBF, human milk-based fortifier; BMBF, bovine milk-based fortifier.