Mediation analysis as a means of identifying dietary components that differentially affect the fecal microbiota of infants weaned by modified baby-led and traditional approaches

The introduction of solid foods (complementary feeding or weaning) to infants leads to more-complex compositions of microbial communities (microbiota or microbiome) in the gut. In baby-led weaning (BLW), infants are given only finger foods that they can pick up and feed themselves—there is no parental spoon-feeding of puréed baby foods—and infants are encouraged to eat family meals. BLW is a new approach to infant feeding that is increasing in popularity in the United States, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Canada. We used mediation modeling, commonly used in health research but not in microbiota studies until now, to identify particular dietary components that affected the development of the infant gut microbiota.