A new paper of a PhD student has been published.
This paper discusses bacterial exposure of the fetus in utero. It evaluates the two main hypotheses on this topic: 1) sterile womb, and 2) fetal microbiome. It provides a historical overview, methodological approaches to investigation, underlying mechanisms, and the scientific and medical implications of the absence or presence of bacteria in the uterus during pregnancy. This review might be of interest to anyone interested in pregnancy and early life. It also gives a brief introduction to gnotobiotic and germ-free studies.