Kristie McNealy, MD

Mom’s of preemies and NICU babies are encouraged to express breast milk for their babies, but typically, that milk doesn’t provide enough calories and nutrients to support all the needs of a growing preemie. Because of this, most NICU’s add a powdered cow’s milk based Human Milk Fortifier (HMF) to a mom’s expressed milk to increase calories and certain nutrients. Prolacta Bioscience, a company which specializes in meeting the nutritional needs of preemies in their first 30 days of life, is the only company which makes a HMF derived from 100% human donor milk.

Research suggests that the use of human milk reduces the incidence of certain serious complications like sepsis and necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in premature infants. This may be due to the known antibacterial properties of human milk. Recent research from Prolacta shows that using their human milk derived fortifier preserves the antibacterial properties of mother’s milk, which are disrupted by certain bovine derived HMFs.

I find this study particularly interesting, because my own preemie developed an infection in her GI tract and then NEC, less than a week after the NICU started fortifying my milk. Although we don’t know exactly what causes NEC, a triad of factors, including impaired blood flow or oxygenation to the gut, an immature immune system and infection is thought to be involved. If using a bovine milk fortifier increases the chance of infection by decreasing the antibacterial properties of human milk, then commonly used human milk fortifiers could theoretically play a part in the development of NEC.

More research into this issue is clearly required, but at this point, I think I would request the use of the Prolacta HMF if we wound up in the NICU again.

For more information, visit the Prolacta Bioscience website.