Stimmune - Bioactive milk diet to stimulate gut immune defense in infants born with perinatal inflammation

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are two gut inflammatory disorders that are influenced by diet and gut microbes. NEC mainly occurs in immature infants, while IBD occurs in both children and adults. NEC and IBD are both associated with systemic inflammation but the links are poorly understood. Preterm newborns are often affected by inflammatory insults before birth and maternal chorioamnionitis (CA) negatively affects the newborn. Just after preterm birth, systemic infections are also common (e.g. late onset sepsis, LOS, > 48 h after birth) and have negative consequences. Mother´s milk protects the developing gut from NEC and adverse reactions to bacteria and toxins, but it is not clear if this protection also extends to CA and LOS. In this project the use of NEC‐sensitive preterm pigs, exposed to CA or LOS in the perinatal period, to identify new milk‐bioactive factors that modulate gut and blood immunity is investigated. The project focuses on elucidating milk effects on perinatal inflammation via changes to the gut microbiome, epigenome and metabolome, and the aim is to show how specific milk diets modulate gut immunity both short and more long term after inflammatory insults occurring in the perinatal period.