Premature infants have special nutritional needs. Since their fragile bodies cannot consume as much breast milk as full-term babies, they need extra nutrients, minerals and protein to help them grow.
A recent Baylor College of Medicine study led by Texas Children’s Neonatologist Dr. Amy Hair, and published in The Journal of Pediatrics, found that adding a cream supplement in the diets of premature infants improved their growth outcomes in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
“When premature babies are born, their lungs and other organs are still developing,” said Hair. “They need extra calories to help them grow adequately while in the NICU, thus improving their long-term health and developmental outcomes.”
Hair’s study examined 78 NICU infants weighing less than three pounds at Texas Children’s Newborn Center and the University Health System at San Antonio. Half of the infants received an exclusive human milk diet consisting of mother’s own milk or pasteurized donor breast milk, and a protein fortifier. The other half received the exclusive human milk diet plus a cream supplement derived from pasteurized human milk fat. Researchers found that premature infants who received the cream supplement had better growth outcomes in terms of weight and length than infants who received just the exclusive human milk diet.
“Premature babies can tolerate only a certain amount of feedings since their stomach and intestines are extremely sensitive,” said Hair. “The cream supplement is a natural way to give them fat and boost their caloric intake without changing the volume of milk.”
Texas Children’s is the first hospital in the world to add human milk-based cream to the diets of infants who weigh less than 3.3 pounds. Since our tiniest NICU patients are fed an exclusive human milk diet, this has significantly reduced the rate of necrotizing enterocolitis, a severe and potentially deadly intestinal infection common in premature infants.
“A mother’s milk is the best nutrition a baby can have, which is why we feed only breast milk to the babies in our NICU,” said Nancy Hurst, director of Women’s Support Services at Texas Children’s. “We depend on the generous mothers who donate their excess breast milk to our Milk Bank to ensure our NICU infants have a better chance of survival during this critical stage in their young lives.”
Additionally, Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women has implemented numerous breastfeeding programs for new mothers to ensure their babies get off to a healthy start. The hospital’s focus on neonatal nutrition underscored by its initiatives to promote successful breastfeeding, has helped Texas Children’s inch closer towards achieving the Baby-Friendly Hospital designation.
Click here to learn more about Texas Children’s Milk Bank Donation Program, and click here to read Dr. Hair’s Journal of Pediatrics study.