The importance of colonic microflora to good health is well known, but how the process of bacteria colonization in the colon proceeds is not well understood. We therefore evaluated the qualitative composition of fecal flora from 42 healthy fully breast-fed neonates. Both aerobic and anaerobic flora were cultivated using selective media. The dominant isolates included E. coli, S. aureus and coagulase-negative Staphylococcus sp. Fifty percent of the staphylococci were methicillin resistant. Bifidobacterium sp. and Bacteroides were isolated with identical frequencies. Our results suggests that breast milk alone is not sufficient to provide a dominance of bifidobacteria.

Keywords: fecal flora, infant health