The Alberta BLOOM Premature Child Study

Premature birth (birth before 37 weeks of pregnancy) occurs in about 1 in 10 pregnancies. When infants are born prematurely their gut is not as developed. One important factor in gut health is the large community of microbes (tiny living things such as bacteria) that live on the human body called the microbiome. Recent studies have shown that premature infants are more likely to experience changes to their gut microbiome that are associated with health issues, such as asthma and allergies. However, the specific microbiome features of children born preterm and the role of their microbiome in disease risk and childhood health is not well understood. The Alberta BLOOM Premature Child Study (PCS) investigates how the microbiome and immune health of premature children develops over the first years of life and its associations with the risk of childhood health outcomes. BLOOM-PCS will also study how the microbiome of children born premature differs from the microbiome in the term population. The type of microbes that are present in the infant's gut in the first months of life have a major impact on the microbiome that will form during childhood. There are many environmental factors during pregnancy, birth and the first months of life that can impact an infant's microbiome development. Factors such as diet, exposure to antibiotics, surgical procedures, and mode of delivery can strongly affect early microbiome development. This study will investigate how these factors influence the types of early microbes present in preterm infants. This study hypothesizes that specific microbial patterns, trajectories and/or metabolites will be significantly associated with single or a combination of perinatal maternal and/on infant factors. Also, that microbial alterations resulting from preterm birth contributes to the allergy and asthma outcomes in infants through immune mechanisms.