Fig. 2

Factors influencing the infant mycobiome and mycobiome-associated health outcomes. Mode of delivery, mother’s microbiota, diet, gestational age at birth, and antibiotic exposure can influence the infant mycobiome. These factors can also impact the infant bacterial microbiome, which in turn shapes the mycobiome. The mycobiome has been noted as a source of fungal overgrowth [65–67], can modulate the bacterial microbiome [70], is implicated in inflammatory bowel disease [88–92], and has been associated with obesity [29, 76–80]. Exposure to fungi has been implicated in allergic disease development [82, 93] and beneficial fungi, such as Saccharomyces boulardii, can be used to alleviate pediatric diarrhea [84–86, 93]