![]() Many of us in the human milk advocacy and quality improvement arenas are really pushing human milk drug. The last point has been somewhat of an impediment for some NICUs in using donor milk for their babies. Unfortunately too this also increases the stringency of requirements for managing and handling human milk in hospitals in these three states, such as the need to hold a tissue bank license. To date, in three states, California, New York and Maryland, human milk is fully recognized as a liquid tissue. Human milk contains a myriad of biologically active compounds as well as cellular parts. This makes it not unlike another more familiar liquid tissue, blood. One of the first ways was through the classification as a liquid tissue. 6, 7 Interestingly though, once improved methods for human milk fortification overcame the nutritional deficiencies of intake of plain human milk, many preemies were continued on preterm formula.įortunately, over the past decade the recognition of human milk as a natural medical miracle has emerged. Despite these positive attributes, however, infants feeding preterm formula were still getting sicker at higher rates from sepsis and necrotizing enterocolitis compared to human milk feeding. Preterm formula contained more of practically everything compared to human milk, more energy, more protein, more mineral, more vitamins and more trace elements, all promoting overall better growth. And rightly so since many early studies demonstrated that human milk alone in a small preterm baby would lead to poor growth, bone mineralization and long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes. It was not long ago when most preemies everywhere were being fed solely preterm formula. Frankly if we could grade the quality of sleep thereafter it would be off the charts. It is common to hear in the NICU talk about our babies experiencing “milk coma.” They are down for the count, they are in heaven. ![]() While there are no clearly discovered compounds in human milk that convincingly lead to chemical addiction (aside from maternal medications that may cross over), there is indisputable observational evidence that infants breastfeeding or bottle feeding mother’s milk reach a state of complete relaxation and level of satisfaction that if we were able to get a verbal response, infants would confess to euphoria. There are two aspects to any drug addiction, chemical and psychologic. 4, 5 These facts have been supported by numerous other studies over the past decade and this is driving up the number of preemies that are getting hooked on mother’s milk. Like other drugs, human milk has a dose dependent effect in preterm infants on reducing the incidence of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and on reducing neurocognitive impairment. Human milk is a drug, and made up of not just one but many compounds. Now that it is clear that we are seeing an epidemic in adult prescription narcotic abuse and thereby maternal narcotic addiction, and downstream neonatal abstinence syndrome across the country, it seems fitting that we take some time to discuss a counter movement that has come upon us, the rising positive “addiction” of many preterm infants to mother’s own milk. ![]()
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