maternal-health
Maternal health in plant science refers to the physiological condition and stress responses of a parent plant during seed development, fertilization, and early offspring establishment. The health and environment of the maternal plant directly influence seed quality, dormancy, germination success, and the epigenetic programming of the next generation. Understanding these maternal effects is critical for improving crop resilience, seed viability, and reproductive success under changing environmental conditions.
open_in_new WikipediaPubMed · 2026-05-08
A comprehensive review examines how prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics affect maternal and fetal health during pregnancy, detailing their roles across gut, immune, vaginal, placental, and breast milk systems — and outlining safety and quality standards for each class.
Prebiotics reshape short-chain fatty acid and bile acid pools in the gut, tighten epithelial junctions, and reduce microbial translocation and endotoxemia, lowering vascular strain during pregnancy.
Vaginal lactobacilli maintain acidity, suppress harmful microbes, and may reduce colonization risk for pathogens — a key safety factor for maternal and fetal outcomes.
Safety profiles differ significantly by class: prebiotics are generally well tolerated with dose-dependent GI side effects, while probiotics require strain-level validation and contaminant-free production, and postbiotics need verified inactivation and structural characterization.