The importance of using human milk for newborn feeding in an intensive care unit

It is very important that the first meal for your newborn is human milk, assuming that the child's condition allows it. To begin with, it is sufficient for you to smear drops of colostrum on the oral cavity of your baby, thus providing trophic and immunological as well as nutritional benefits.

The importance of colostrum 

Colostrum is the first milk that is secreted from your breast (during the first five days after birth), followed by transitional milk, which slowly turns into mature milk from the 15th day until the end of the 6th week. 

The importance of human milk 

In addition to nutrients, human milk contains numerous cellular, immunological, endocrine, prebiotic, and anticancer elements that affect your child's development. Many studies have confirmed that feeding human milk prevents many diseases: hospital-acquired infections, sepsis, meningitis, necrotising enterocolitis, chronic lung diseases, visual impairment, developmental and neurocognitive disorders, re-hospitalization after discharge from the intensive care unit, inflammation of the middle ear, respiratory tract infections, asthma, diarrhoea, urinary tract infections, sudden infant death syndrome, diabetes mellitus types 1 and 2, lymphomas, leukaemia, hypercholesterolemia, and obesity. Human milk improves your child's neurocognitive development. Recent research has also demonstrated the importance of antibacterial and anticancer proteins (HAMLET - human α-lactalbumin lethal for tumour cells) as well as stem cells in breast milk that help tissue regeneration and its anti-ageing (regenerating and rejuvenating) effect. In addition, there is a big financial benefit to you in using breast milk. 

Contraindications to breastfeeding or feeding expressed breast milk to infants

Physicians should make case-by-case assessments in order to determine whether your environmental exposure, medical condition or the medical condition of your baby warrants you to interrupt, stop, or indeed never start breastfeeding. Parents should be involved in the decision making process, and informed about the possible effects of each course of action on both the health of your infant and its own health.

The only contraindications to breastfeeding are:

  • Your infant is diagnosed with classic galactosemia, a rare genetic metabolic disorder.
  • You are taking anticancer drugs that contain radioactive substances - it may be necessary to stop breastfeeding for some time.
  • You are using an illicit drug, such as opioids, PCP (phencyclidine) or cocaine.
  • Certain medications can cause side effects that sometimes make it necessary to stop breastfeeding.
  • You have either suspected or confirmed Ebola virus disease.

Human milk banks 

If you are unable to provide your milk to your baby, human milk banks can be used. There are non-profit organizations that manage the selection, collection, analysis, processing, storage and distribution of human milk from donors. A human milk donor is a woman who gives her excess milk to the bank to feed children whose mothers does not have milk. From the human milk bank, milk is distributed to patients who are, in most cases, premature newborns. In order for milk to be donated, it is necessary to ensure certain procedures including: 

  • An analysis of the health status and habits of the donor (use of medication and illegal substances, and donating milk before the expiration of the required time after blood transfusion, tattoos, organ transplantation, and some vaccines, is prohibited). 
  • An adequate milk transport chain. 
  • Bacteriological analysis of the milk. 
  • Heat treatment of the milk (holder pasteurisation).
  • Labelling and storage of the milk.

There are many milk banks across the world, including 282 in the European Association of Milk Banks.