Bifidobacterium lactis in infant formula and infant growth
What it found
Infants fed formula with added Bifidobacterium lactis grew about the same as infants fed formula without it.
This was in healthy, full-term babies.
What they found
Studies in people
Weight gain
Four trials with 266 infants found no difference in weight gain between those fed formula with Bifidobacterium lactis and those fed formula without it.
Length gain
Four trials with 261 infants found similar length gain in both groups.
Head circumference
Three trials with 207 infants found no difference in head circumference gain.
Body mass index
Three trials with 206 infants found no difference in BMI between the groups.
Lactobacillus GG
One small trial with 105 infants suggested that those who received standard formula with Lactobacillus GG grew better, but the groups were not equal at the start. No such effect was seen with hydrolyzed formula.
Other findings
Body composition
None of the studies reported on body composition, skinfold, or DXA measurements.
What the authors conclude
“Supplementation of infant formulae with B lactis results in growth similar to what is found in infants fed unsupplemented formulae.”
Also in their conclusions
- They conclude that supplementing infant formula with B lactis results in growth similar to that of infants fed unsupplemented formula.
- They state that limited data do not allow a conclusion on the effect of LGG supplementation on infant growth.
How it was done
Growth is a key sign of an infant's overall health and is used to check the safety of new ingredients added to infant formula, such as probiotics.
The authors searched for and combined nine randomized controlled trials of healthy, full-term infants. The trials compared infant formula with added Bifidobacterium lactis Bb12 or Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG against the same formula without the probiotic. The studies lasted from 4 weeks to 7 months.
What it can’t tell you
- Some of the included trials were small and had high dropout rates, so the findings may be affected by bias.
- The studies were too short and too small to detect small but important differences in growth.
Who paid
- Authors work at
- The Medical University of Warsaw, Poland
The paper
- Title
- Growth of infants fed formula supplemented with Bifidobacterium lactis Bb12 or Lactobacillus GG: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials
- Type
- Systematic review
- Evidence
- Studies in people
- Summarised from
- Full text
- Licence
- CC BY. Words in quotation marks are the authors’; the rest is our summary.
- Cite
- Szajewska H, Chmielewska A (2013). Growth of infants fed formula supplemented with Bifidobacterium lactis Bb12 or Lactobacillus GG: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. BMC pediatrics. doi:10.1186/1471-2431-13-185Free full textPubMed 24215626DOI
Summary written 30 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error