The Bern Birth Cohort (BeBiCo) to study the development of the infant intestinal microbiota in a high-resource setting in Switzerland: rationale, design, and methods.

Background: Microbiota composition is fundamental to human health with the intestinal microbiota undergoing critical changes within the first two years of life. The developing intestinal microbiota is shaped by maternal seeding, breast milk and its complex constituents, other nutrients, and the environment. Understanding microbiota-dependent pathologies requires a profound understanding of the early development of the healthy infant microbiota.