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J. Mol. Sci.","IJMS"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The gut microbiota is recognized as important to maternal and child health through associations with immune maturation, metabolic programming, barrier integrity, and early-life disease susceptibility. Indigenous food systems, fermented foods, probiotics, and postbiotics may influence gut microbial communities and functions, suggesting potential avenues for investigation into nutritional resilience, particularly in low-resource settings. This review synthesizes evidence on microbiome-informed maternal and child nutrition, focusing on indigenous foods, fermented foods, probiotics, postbiotics, and microbiome-mediated mechanisms. Literature was searched in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar for studies, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses published between 2015 and 2025. Evidence indicates that microbiome-directed nutritional interventions may influence microbial metabolites, particularly short-chain fatty acids, and pathways associated with barrier integrity, immune regulation, and cellular signaling, including adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK), mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-\u03baB), toll-like receptor (TLR), and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR). Artificial intelligence, multi-omics, and precision nutrition may support the investigation and future development of more targeted approaches. However, gaps remain regarding population-specific microbiome profiles, standardized probiotic and postbiotic formulations, longitudinal maternal\u2013infant relationships, and evidence from African and other low-resource settings. The Microbiome-Informed Nutrition Framework (MINF) is proposed as a hypothesis-generating model integrating indigenous food systems, microbiome-directed interventions, precision nutrition, and community-based primary healthcare as potential areas for future research, rather than established clinical or public health interventions.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ijms27198503","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,23]],"date-time":"2026-09-23T16:10:31Z","timestamp":1790179831000},"page":"8503","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Microbiome-Guided Maternal and Child Nutrition: A Structured Narrative Review of Indigenous African Foods, Fermented Foods, and Emerging Evidence"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"27","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0004-4155-5819","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Alice Njolke","family":"Mafe","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, Taraba State University, Main Campus, Jalingo 660101, Taraba State, Nigeria"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5196-3366","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Dietrich","family":"B\u00fcsselberg","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine, Qatar Campus, Weill Cornell Medicine Qatar, Education City, Qatar Foundation, Doha Metropolitan Area, Doha P.O. Box 22104, Qatar"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,23]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"100026","DOI":"10.1016\/j.dialog.2022.100026","article-title":"Improving maternal and child health outcomes through a community involvement strategy in Kabula location, Bungoma County, Kenya","volume":"1","author":"Esamai","year":"2022","journal-title":"Dialogues Health"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"607","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ajog.2021.12.035","article-title":"The importance of nutrition in pregnancy and lactation: Lifelong consequences","volume":"226","author":"Marshall","year":"2022","journal-title":"Am. J. Obstet. 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