Solely human milk diets for preterm infants

Abstract

Human milk provides not only ideal nutrition for infant development but also immunologic factors to protect from infection and inflammation. For the newborn preterm infant, the natural delivery of milk is not attainable, and instead pumped maternal milk, donor human milk, and human milk fortification are mainstays of clinical care. Current research demonstrates a decreased risk of necrotizing enterocolitis with maternal milk and donor human milk when individually compared to formula and with a complete human milk diet of maternal milk supplemented with donor human milk. The incidence of severe retinopathy of prematurity is decreased with an exclusive human milk diet, and this decrease is more pronounced with human milk-based compared to bovine milk-based human milk fortifier. The incidence of other morbidities such as late-onset sepsis and bronchopulmonary dysplasia is decreased with higher dose of human milk though significant differences are not apparent in exclusive human milk diet studies.