Inflammatory Markers in Mother's Own Milk and Infant Stool of Very Low Birthweight Infants.
Rebecca Hoban, Hadar Nir, Emily Somerset and 3 others
PMID 37653641WHAT IT FOUND
Mother's own milk inflammatory markers changed over early weeks, but none tracked with infant stool calprotectin.
This does not show that milk inflammation harmed very preterm infants' guts.
Key findings
01In mother's own milk, IL-8, free choline and CRP changed over early postpartum weeks, with IL-8 and free choline falling in the first 1 to 2 weeks and CRP falling until 4 weeks.
02Infant stool calprotectin showed no association with any measured inflammatory marker in mother's own milk.
03The relationship between free choline and CRP in mother's own milk changed over time, becoming more inverse at later collection days.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Exploratory secondary analysis with no power calculation, so it cannot reliably detect or rule out associations. Only a subset of the original trial participants had usable stored milk samples, and sample numbers fell over time. Many milk samples were below detection limits for several cytokines, and colostrum was not analysed because the milk data started at day 5. Half the infants did not receive exclusive mother's own milk, so donor milk may have changed the relationship between milk markers and stool calprotectin. Single centre, so the profiles may not generalise to other NICU populations. NEC was rare, and the study did not test clinical outcomes, only biomarker associations.
Declared interests
Authors declared no conflicts of interest. The original OptiMoM trial was funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research. This secondary analysis was funded by research start-up funds for Rebecca Hoban from the Department of Paediatrics of the Hospital for Sick Children.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the null stool calprotectin result as proof that mother's own milk inflammatory markers are harmless for the infant gut. This was an exploratory secondary analysis of stored samples, not a feeding trial, and many markers were below detection limits.