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Infant Nutrition
Published in Praveen S. Goday, Cassandra L. S. Walia, Pediatric Nutrition for Dietitians, 2022
Olivia Mayer, Yasemin Cagil, John Kerner
Human milk provides nutrition and bioactive components unique to a human infant’s needs. Breastfeeding and providing human milk are recommended for the first 6 months of life by all professional medical associations as well as the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and breastfeeding should complement foods until 12 months of age or beyond. Its unique composition is specifically designed to optimize an infant’s ability to digest and absorb macro- and micronutrients in amounts required to promote growth and support neurodevelopment. Human milk also contains non-nutritive factors such as growth hormones, digestive enzymes, and stem cells and has diverse immune-enhancing properties (see Table 5.2). Our understanding of the seemingly infinite components of the human milk is constantly changing as the tools to measure its composition improve and facilitate more research. Beyond meeting nutritional needs, feeding at the breast allows the infant to learn to self-regulate intake and it is a time for bonding facilitated through skin-to-skin contact, eye contact, and familiar odors. Human milk is dynamic in its make-up, constantly changing to meet the nutritionl and immunological needs of the infant and is influenced by maternal diet and environmental exposures. Human milk composition changes throughout the day and throughout the first year of life as the nutrient needs for infant change and table foods are introduced.
Animal Source Foods
Published in Chuong Pham-Huy, Bruno Pham Huy, Food and Lifestyle in Health and Disease, 2022
Chuong Pham-Huy, Bruno Pham Huy
The composition of human milk is the biologic norm for infant nutrition (91). Human milk also contains many hundreds to thousands of distinct bioactive molecules including antibodies and immune cells that protect against infection and inflammation and contribute to immune maturation, organ development, and healthy microbial colonization for the baby. Human milk is a dynamic, bioactive fluid that changes in composition from colostrum to late lactation, and varies within feeds, diurnally, and between mothers (91).
Postpartum Health and Lactation
Published in Michelle Tollefson, Nancy Eriksen, Neha Pathak, Improving Women's Health Across the Lifespan, 2021
Kristi R. VanWinden, Elizabeth Collins
Human milk is the physiologic and preferred source of nutrition for human babies. The World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the infant’s first 6 months of life, and then continuing with the addition of complementary foods through 1–2 years of life. Benefits are proportional to the amount and duration of human milk consumed,8 but any human milk provision is advantageous. There are a few true contraindications to breastfeeding, but these affect a very small minority of mother–infant dyads.
Can I pump here? Availability and awareness of lactation spaces at New Jersey colleges and universities
Published in Journal of American College Health, 2022
Lauren M. Dinour, Reshma D. Adwar, Ayla Gentiletti, Nyreen Seguinot, Kaitlin Overgaard
Human milk is the ideal food for most infants, conferring a host of health benefits for both the infant and parent.1–3 For parents who are employed, research shows that breastfeeding reduces absenteeism rates due to infant illness.4 Additionally, when employees receive support to express breast milk at work, they exhibit higher retention rates,5 increased health care savings,6 and higher productivity and satisfaction with their jobs.7 Despite these benefits, US breastfeeding rates are among the lowest in the world.8 In 2015, 83.2% of American infants were ever breastfed, yet only 24.9% were exclusively breastfed through six months as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and United National Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF).9 One of the main reasons for this steep drop-off is return to work. Parents often experience barriers to maintaining breastfeeding when returning to their place of employment or education.10 This is significant, given that in 2017, 55.3% of mothers with infants under one year were employed in the labor force.11 Among American undergraduate college students, nearly 26% were parents in 2012, a 30% increase from 2004.12
Infant sex differences in human milk intake and composition from 1- to 3-month post-delivery in a healthy United States cohort
Published in Annals of Human Biology, 2021
Erin K. Eckart, Jennifer D. Peck, Elyse O. Kharbanda, Emily M. Nagel, David A. Fields, Ellen W. Demerath
Human milk is a complex fluid that provides essential energy and nutrients to infants as well as growth factors, hormones, microbes, immune factors, whole cells, miRNAs, and other constituents believed to be bioactive for the infant during a critical period of development (Savino et al. 2013; Andreas et al. 2015; Lee and Kelleher 2016). Human milk composition is known to vary considerably between individual women and across populations, and by specific maternal characteristics, including diet, obesity status, metabolic state (i.e. obesity and diabetes), as well as behavioural factors, such as feeding patterns (Fields et al. 2016; Lee and Kelleher 2016). In contrast, infant characteristics that influence milk composition, including infant sex, are greatly understudied. Sexual dimorphism in mammalian morphology is apparent early in development onwards, arises initially from differing genetic and hormonal effects, and is associated with numerous sex differences in subsequent health and development (Becker et al. 2005). The need to conduct studies that take into account sex as a biological variable in medicine was highlighted by the 2001 Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee report, “Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health: Does Sex Matter” (IOM 2001).
Origins of human milk microbiota: new evidence and arising questions
Published in Gut Microbes, 2020
Shirin Moossavi, Meghan B. Azad
Storage temperature and duration are important factors to consider, as they can variably influence the integrity and composition of nutrients, bioactives and bacteria in pumped milk.35 Research in the dairy industry and human milk has shown that suboptimal storage could lead to shifts in the milk microbiota composition or viability, and dominance of spoilage bacteria.35 Current guidelines for human milk storage in the context of infant feeding recommend refrigeration for up to 4 days and storage at −18°C or colder for up to 6–12 months.36 In our study we did not observe any associations between milk microbiota composition and refrigeration time prior to processing; however, the duration was generally short and the range was small in our study (mean: 18 h, range: 10 min – 27 h). Further studies are needed to understand the impact of human milk storage conditions on microbiota composition in both research and real-world settings, especially with regards to potential opportunistic pathogens.