We found no evidence to support a protective association between perinatal use of probiotics and doctor diagnosed asthma or childhood wheeze .
R and omised controlled trials to date have not yielded sufficient evidence to recommend probiotics for the primary prevention of these disorders .
OBJECTIVE To evaluate the association of probiotic supplementation during pregnancy or infancy with  childhood asthma and wheeze .
Low diversity of the gut microbiota in infants with atopic eczema.
BACKGROUND It is debated whether a low total diversity of the gut microbiota in early childhood is more important than an altered prevalence of particular bacterial species for the increasing incidence of allergic disease . The advent of powerful , cultivation-free molecular methods makes it possible to characterize the total microbiome down to the genus level in large cohorts . OBJECTIVE We sought to assess microbial diversity and characterize the dominant bacteria in stool during the first year of life in relation to atopic eczema development . METHODS Microbial diversity and composition were analyzed with barcoded 16S rDNA 454-pyrosequencing in stool sample s at 1 week , 1 month , and 12 months of age in 20 infants with IgE-associated eczema and 20 infants without any allergic manifestation until 2 years of age ( Clinical Trials.gov ID NCT01285830 ) . RESULTS Infants with IgE-associated eczema had a lower diversity of the total microbiota at 1 month ( P = .004 ) and a lower diversity of the bacterial phylum Bacteroidetes and the genus Bacteroides at 1 month ( P = .02 and P = .01 ) and the phylum Proteobacteria at 12 months of age ( P = .02 ) . The microbiota was less uniform at 1 month than at 12 months of age , with a high interindividual variability . At 12 months , when the microbiota had stabilized , Proteobacteria , comprising gram-negative organisms , were more abundant in infants without allergic manifestation ( Empirical Analysis of Digital Gene Expression in R [ edgeR ] test : P = .008 , q = 0.02 ) . CONCLUSION Low intestinal microbial diversity during the first month of life was associated with subsequent atopic eczema
We found no evidence to support a protective association between perinatal use of probiotics and doctor diagnosed asthma or childhood wheeze .
R and omised controlled trials to date have not yielded sufficient evidence to recommend probiotics for the primary prevention of these disorders .
OBJECTIVE To evaluate the association of probiotic supplementation during pregnancy or infancy with  childhood asthma and wheeze .