Antibiotic administration and oral bacterial therapy in infants.

Feces samples of 35 children, aged between 3 and 24 months (mean age 12 months), were analyzed. Sixteen children who had no therapy were considered as "control samples"; an antibiotic therapy was administered to 8 subjects for at least 5 days for extraintestinal pathology (ampicillin, orally, at a dose of 100 mg/kg/die in three doses). Finally, the same antibiotic therapy with the addition, from the beginning over 5 days, of the oral preparation of Bacillus subtilis spores (4 X 10(9) die) was administered to 11 patients. During antibiotic therapy, the number of stools per day increased, but not for those patients taking B. subtilis spores. Regarding the bacterial flora, the subjects treated with antibiotic therapy alone showed a significant decrease of all aerobic species, except for fungi, anaerobic total count and aerobic cocci. After oral bacteriotherapy together with ampicillin, we observed an increase of saccharolytic flora, aerobic and anaerobic, while proteolytic flora did not show any changes.