Abstract
Human milk oligosaccharide (HMO) composition varies throughout lactation and can be influenced by maternal characteristics. This study describes HMO variation up to three months postpartum and explores the influences of maternal sociodemographic and anthropometric characteristics in a Brazilian prospective cohort. We followed 101 subjects from 28–35 gestational weeks (baseline) and throughout lactation at 2–8 (visit 1), 28–50 (visit 2) and 88–119 days postpartum (visit 3). Milk samples were collected at visits 1, 2 and 3, and 19 HMOs were quantified usinghigh-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FL). Friedman post-hoc test, Spearman rank correlation for maternal characteristics and HMOs and non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) were used to define the HMO profile. Most women were secretors (89.1%) and presented high proportion of 2′-fucosyllactose (2′FL) at all three sample times, while lacto-N-tetraose (LNT, 2–8 days) and lacto-N-fucopentaose II (LNFPII, 28–50 and 88–119 days) were the most abundant HMOs in non-secretor women. Over the course of lactation, total HMO weight concentrations (g/L) decreased, but total HMO molar concentrations (mmol/L) increased, highlighting differential changes in HMO composition over time. In addition, maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and parity influence the HMO composition in healthy women in this Brazilian cohort.
Highlights
Human milk is a conditionally complete food, allowing infants to reach adequate growth and development [1,2,3,4]
This study describes the variation of Human milk oligosaccharide (HMO) concentrations at 2–8, 28–50 and 88–119 days postpartum and explores the role of maternal sociodemographic and anthropometric characteristics on HMO
The results found in the present study suggest that HMO composition varied throughout lactation in Brazilian women, with lower concentrations in g/L at 88–119 days, but an increase in concentrations of low-molecular HMOs at the same period
Summary
Human milk is a conditionally complete food, allowing infants to reach adequate growth and development [1,2,3,4]. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended since 2001 the adoption of exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life [6,7]. These health benefits have been related to the composition of human milk [8,9]. Oligosaccharides, part of the carbohydrate fraction, are the 3rd most abundant solid component of human milk (after lactose and fat) [10]. Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) are complex unconjugated glycans that are synthesized from lactose, can be by elongated by lacto-N-biose or N-acetyllactosamine disaccharide units, and modified by fucose or sialic acid [10]. HMO concentrations range from 20–25 g/L in colostrum to 5–15 g/L in mature milk [10,13,14]
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