Mother's Milk Saving the Lives of Premature Babies

CBS Evening News reports that UC San Diego Medical Center has a new program that strongly promotes mothers of premature babies to commit to breastfeeding rather than formula. It is not easy. Support for mothers committing to breastfeeding is crucial for them to be able to provide their babies with their breast milk that could be lifesaving. View video below.

From the CBS News Report:

One huge difference the program has made is a significant decrease in one life-threatening complication of prematurity - a gastrointestinal infection called necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC. Of the half million premature babies born every year, between 5-10 percent of them develop it and a third of those die.

Before this program started, the rate of NEC in this hospital was 5.8 percent; last year it was less than 1 percent.

"The more human milk they're exposed to, the more reduction in complications such as necrotizing enterocolitis," Dr. Kim said.

You may be interested in this story:
A mom of a baby born at 28 weeks shares her story from Pennsylvania.

Breastfeeding Reduces SIDS Risk

A study from Germany was just published in Pediatrics concluding that breastfeeding reduces SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) by approximately 50%. Here is the link to the full Journal article and here is the link to the news story from Reuters.

In the study's abstract the Conclusions are:

"This study shows that breastfeeding reduced the risk of sudden infant death syndrome by 50% at all ages throughout infancy. We recommend including the advice to breastfeed through 6 months of age in sudden infant death syndrome risk-reduction messages."

Words of Praise from a Reader

Kelley Baker-Ewert received Breastfeeding with Comfort and Joy just days after her baby born at 28 weeks gestation was discharged from the hospital. Two days after receiving the book, she writes,

Well, I love the book. I love it. I can already feel the difference when my son nurses, and the pictures are at once informative and beautiful. It is so nice to be reminded with beautiful pictures of the connection nursing forges between a baby and momma, especially when nursing is tough.

My friend who sent it to me was my midwife. However, my son was born at 28 weeks gestation due to severe preeclampsia. It's always been important to me to nurse him, and became even more so in our circumstances. While he received the breast before the bottle, and we spent lots of time kangarooing and nursing as soon as he was able, Gwyn still came home exclusively getting his calories from bottled breastmilk. I think that just having this book would have made a huge difference for us. I would have known what a good latch looked like... With this in mind, I ordered a copy to donate to our NICU as a gift for their library. Hopefully it'll help other mommas and babies!