On the Intestinal Flora of Bottle-Fed Infant

Abstract

In order to obtain current information about the intestinal flora of bottle-fed infants, feces from 30 breast-fed infants and 43 bottle-fed infants, including 3 infants of low birth weights, were examined by the method of Mitsuoka. The frequency of occurrence and total number of bifidobacteria in bottle-fed infants were nearly equal to those of breast-fed infants. The number of enterobacteriaceae, streptococci, and anaerobes other than bifidobacteria were significantly higher in bottle -fed infants than in breastfed infants. As for Bifidobacterium species, there was little difference between bottlefed and breast-fed infants in average counts of all the species detected, but the frequency of occurrence of Bifidobacterium bifidum in bottle-fed infants was less than in breast-fed infants. The appearance of bifidobacteria in low birth weight bottle -fed infants was more delayed than that in normal bottle-fed infants, and their species composition was also simple, consisting of two species of bifidobacteria: B. breve plus B. bifidum, or B. breve plus B. adolescentis.