Bovine-based breast milk fortifier and neonatal outcomes in premature infants of <32 weeks gestational age

Breast milk (maternal or donor) is the gold standard nutrition for preterm infants. Breast milk fortifier (BMF) provides supplementary nutrition to avoid the high growth failure rates in preterm infants. Conflicting reports have implicated BMF, especially bovine-based products, in the development of necrotising enterocolitis (NEC) and persistent safety concerns regarding BMF have led to variability in use across the UK and internationally. This study examines whether the use of bovine-based BMF in preterm infants plays a role in the development of NEC, or an increase in all-cause mortality.

Kate W. Jordan
Clinical Fellow

Laura De Rooy
Consultant Neonatologist

Justin Richards
Consultant Neonatologist

Anay Kulkarni
Consultant Neonatologist
anay.kulkarni@stgeorges.nhs.uk

Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, St George’s University Hospital, London

Full text available by subscription ...

The full text of this article is available to subscribers in text, and in Tablet/iPad format and as a PDF file.

Please subscribe and log in to see the full article.

Keywords

breast milk fortifier (BMF); necrotising enterocolitis (NEC); neonatal outcomes; mortality; safety

Key points

The use of bovine BMF was not associated with adverse outcomes in this study.
BMF use was associated with a decreased rate of adverse outcomes in the most clinically vulnerable infants.
The results from this study encourage the use of BMF in preterm infants in neonatal intensive care settings.

Also published in Infant:

VOLUME 15/ISSUE 6, NOVEMBER 2019

Using social media to improve the communication bottleneck in learning from risk incidents

The intensive care environment is prone to risk incidents. Bradford Neonatology introduced a multi-platform approach including social media to provide improved awareness and timely dissemination of learning from risk incidents. A qualitative survey a year after introduction showed that staff felt this to be a useful learning tool that had led to a perceived change in their practice