BIBO Study
basale invloeden op de baby ontwikkeling

The BIBO study is an ongoing, prospective longitudinal project on a healthy community sample. The study was designed to understand how the development of behavioral and physiological regulation, as well as physical health, are influenced by early (prenatal) environmental factors. BIBO stands for the Dutch ‘Basale Invloeden op de Baby Ontwikkeling’, which translates as ‘Basal Influences on the Baby’s Development’. The study began in 2006 with 193 pregnant women from Nijmegen and surrounding areas, in The Netherlands.

Over the years, and thanks to the generous help of the parents and children, teachers, and students and assistants, we have been able to collect an impressive data set using a variety of different methods. Examples are: home observations, laboratory assessments, hormone and intestinal microbiota samples, logbooks and questionnaires. Infants were followed intensively in their first postnatal year, and further assessments were carried out at 2.5, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 , 12, 13 and 14 years. The 16-year assessment round is ongoing. To date, BIBO has delivered 49 scientific publications.

This study is unique worldwide because of its length, rich data set, and type of data sampled (biological, including stress hormones, genes, and gut microbiota, psychological, behavioral, health). The scientific value of this cohort has not remained unnoticed and has led to collaborations on joint analyses of the BIBO data with McGill University, Canada; Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; Penn State University, US; University of California, US; University of Maryland, US; Leiden University, Netherlands; Utrecht University, Netherlands; and University Clinic Hamburg, Germany.

The following people from our lab are working in this study: Yvonne Willemsen, Henrik Eckermann, Nicole Rheinheimer, Stefania Vacaru, Roseriet Beijers, Carolina de Weerth