Postnatal exposure to household disinfectants, infant gut microbiota and subsequent risk of overweight in children.

Background: Emerging links between household cleaning products and childhood overweight may involve the gut microbiome. We determined mediating effects of infant gut microbiota on associations between home use of cleaning products and future overweight.

Methods: From the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) birth cohort, we tested associations between maternal report of cleaning product use and overweight at age 3, and whether associations were mediated by microbial profiles of fecal samples in 3- to 4-month-old infants.