General Knowledge About Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is have-to-do activity for mother who has already a baby in her life. The reason is breast milk is the best food you can give to your baby.  Breast milk is a complete food source, containing all the nutrients needed by your baby – at least 400 of them to be exact, including hormones and disease fighting compounds that aren't found in formula milk.

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Breast Milk For Premature Baby

Usually baby will be born when gestation time has reached 37-42 weeks, but several babies born faster than the normal gestation time. If it had so, their growth and their development would have not reached perfectness yet, so that their organs and organ-systems in the body haven’t functioned as it ought to be yet. That’s why premature baby needs special handling and nursing, including in getting their mother’s milk.

From many research known that breast milk is the most perfect food for premature baby. Breast milk that is produced from mother with premature baby has unique characteristics. Its composition is different with the breast milk from mother with normal baby. It is amazing, isn’t it? It happened as if mother’s body had known precisely what the elements are needed by their premature baby. Its function especially plays a role in helping the maturation of organs so it can be perfectly functioned. Even, if premature baby receives breast milk from mother that produces breast milk with an abundant amount, it still breast milk from mother with premature baby is the best for them.

Breast milk from mother with premature baby contains nitrogen, protein, lactose, sodium, chloride, mineral, vitamin A, and lipase (a lipid-degradation enzyme) that are higher in concentration level than the breast milk from mother with normal baby. This high content of lipase causes the lipid content in breast milk is easier to digest, so it will also make the digestion process is easier to be done by the digesting tract that hasn’t been developed perfectly yet. Moreover, the breast milk from mother with premature baby contains higher content of antibody, especially its colostrums.

The difference between the breast milk from mother with premature baby and the breast milk from mother with normal baby will take place until baby reach 6 months old. After that, like breast milk from mother with normal baby, breast milk from mother with premature baby will also contain poly unsaturated fatty acids, such as arachidonic acid (omega-6) and also DHA (omega-3). One thing that you should know that it is not easy to breastfed your premature baby, because their suckling and swallowing ability still haven’t perfectly developed yet. Surely it needs patience and the preparation of mother’s mental and psychological.

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DHA in Breast Milk

The Benefits of DHA in the breast milk for brain development process were proven by a research that was conducted for 21 years in the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. The research that was started in 1981 involved 3880 newborns. About 80% of the baby had the breast milk until they are 6 months old. Five years later, their language intelligence was observed. The result showed that baby’s language intelligence was better compared to baby who only had formula milk. Further, their Intelligence Quotient (IQ) was about 8 points higher than the formula milk-baby.

This temporary result of the research that had been published in the United States-based Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health in 2001, showed that the nutrients contained in the breast milk help baby in strength the immune system, so that baby can be avoided from infectious diseases. So, baby’s development will run favourably. Besides, the closeness and inner relationship between baby and mother will be firmly interwoven when baby is breast feeding, furthermore baby’s cognitive ability will also develop. The DHA content in the breast milk that is appropriate with baby’s need may optimize the plasticity process. Plasticity is the process of the formation of new synapse.

The experts from Denmark had conducted the research about DHA content in the breast milk. They found that DHA breast milk is profoundly influenced by food consumption of mothers. If mothers today consuming foods with the high DHA content, then tomorrow the DHA content in the breast milk will increase significantly. The list of omega-3 food resources can you see at The Paleo Diet.

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How to Store Your Breast Milk?

Breast milk is the most optimal source of nutrients and an unmatched source of indispensable anti-microbial and other protective substances for infants. Since its content related to the storage method before distributed to baby, storage of breast milk is becoming important thing to know for mothers particularly.

Storage of human breast milk by freezing or refrigeration of milk with and without heating had been recommended. This can hardly be avoided because of the social circumstances of most mothers who are regularly separated from their baby because of work or schooling as well as the particular needs of some pre-term or sick babies to be fed with expressed breast milk. The greatest fear that has hindered the storage of breast milk for any considerable period of time is the possibility of bacterial contaminationand growth of infectious pathogens in the stored milk, thereby rendering them unsafe for human consumption.

The fresh collected breast milk is rarely sterile and normally contains bacteria originating from the mother’s skin and also nipple duct micro-flora, event it sometimes contain potential pathogen. However, the ability of these microorganisms to infect the suckling baby is uncertain and probably minimal. Pathogen contamination of breast milk would be undesirable and should be avoided. But, the bacterial contamination would increase due to delay of distributing breast milk to baby. Therefore, we should store breast milk using appropriate method in order to avoid decreasing of breast milk quality due to loss of essential component in it. The affordable of milk storage at home for short periods is by refrigeration.

From studies conducted under tropical condition known that unheated breast milk could be stored for at least 8 hours at room temperature and up to 4 Celcius degree in the refrigerator before bacterial multiplication occur beyond unacceptable level. Breast milk, once more, shows significant difference from cow’s milk in the term of the ability to suppress bacterial number during both refrigeration and room temperature storage. There is no evidence of bacteriostatic activity (it means impede bacterial growth and activity) in cow’s milk instead of human breast milk.

Human breast milk contains anti-microbial components which comprised of anti-viral antibodies, antibacterial antibodies, non specific Immunoglobulin-G (IgG), IgA, IgM, lactoferin, glycoconjugates, oligosaccharides, lymphocites, cytokines, et cetera. Enzymes that contained in the breast milk, such as lactoperoxidase and lysozyme, had been also known to posses bacteriostatic effects. These anti-microbial are responsible to protect breast milk component from bacterial contamination. However, the availability of these antimicrobial components was greatly influenced by the method of human breast milk storage.

Bacteriostatic activity of human milk against bacteria of different strains has been shown to be highest in fresh refrigerated or fresh frozen (at -70 Celcius degree) and thawed milk. On the other hand, bacteriostatic activity of frozen milk (at -20 Celcius degree) tends to deteriorate after 1 month of storage. It is suggested that if we intent on store breast milk for longer than 3 days up to 1 month, freezing at -20 Celcius degree could be recommended and fresh-freezing at -70 Celcius degree is intended on longer-term storage.

I believe, if we applying the appropriate method for breast milk storage, our baby will get the optimal nutrients to maintain and improve their health.

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