As recently as the 1950’s, American moms were being told that formula was better for their babies than breast milk. A lot of moms bought into that fallacy, and more and more babies started being fed formula, instead of breast milk, even in the decades that followed. Food allergies subsequently exploded in numbers, and other potentially deadly newborn digestive diseases also saw a rise in incidences.
But in recent years, scientists have uncovered an increasing number of reasons why breast milk is in fact the perfect food for a baby — yet another case where Mother Nature knew best, after all.
Not only does breast milk offer a baby all the vital nutrients that it needs during the first six months of life, but it also supplies for the infant important antibodies that will help strengthen its immune system. And now that researchers have been dissecting the different components in human breast milk, they have found that the milk also has many specific substances that help babies in other important ways.
Researchers from the Saban Research Institute at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles recently uncovered a protein that appears to have a powerful protective effect in a newborn’s gut, helping to prevent damage to the small or large intestine from the potentially deadly disease necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC).
NEC usually occurs in preemies who are bottle-fed (it is the most common and serious intestinal illness among premature babies), but it can also happen in term and near-term infants. In preemies, it usually develops in the second to third week of life; it can result in different types of damage to the baby’s intestinal tract, ranging from injury to the mucosa (the watery layer of tissue lining the inside of the intestines), to damage to the whole depth of intestinal tissue and even perforation.
Of those babies who develop NEC, 30 percent die from the condition; but mortality rates can be 50 percent or higher in the more serious cases (source: Medscape.com). Infants who survive may face serious repercussions, such as having to have part of their intestine removed or having to be fed intravenously.
The protein discovered in the study was named NRG4; researchers conducted studies on rats and on cultured fetal intestinal cells. They found that rats that were fed formula developed an NEC-like condition, while those that were fed formula with the NRG4 protein did not. Cultured intestinal cells put through similar conditions were found to be protected when the protein was present.
The researchers concluded that NRG4 serves several functions in an infant’s intestinal tissue: it blocks inflammatory intestinal damage, it sustains specialized cells that protect the intestine against damage, and it supports stem cells required for intestinal lining renewal.
Findings of the study were published in September, 2014 in the American Journal of Pathology.
Additional Information About NEC
The longer a baby’s gestational age, the less time it takes for the condition to develop after birth. In full-term babies, NEC develops at a median age of 1-3 days, though it can occur as late as 1 month of age. NEC can quickly become severe and life-threatening in an infant; a baby can appear normal one day, start developing symptoms, and die from the disease the next day.
Initial symptoms can include 1 or more of the following:
- Increased abdominal size
- Hardening of the abdomen
- Visible intestinal loops on the abdomen
- Redness or tenderness of the belly
- Food taking longer to empty from stomach into small intestine
- Vomiting
- Interrupted breathing (apnea)
- Constipation
- Diarrhea
- Dark or bloody stools
- Baby’s activity level decreases
If a new mom has difficulties with breastfeeding at first, she should continue to try, even if she needs to enlist the advice of her health care provider to get some pointers. The increased risk of a number of conditions, from future food allergies, which also can be serious, to diseases such as NEC, should give a new mother all the motivation she needs, to keep nursing her baby.
Because prematurity is a risk for NEC, it is also important for moms-to-be to do all in their power to avoid a premature delivery. The easiest way to do this is to be mindful of modifiable known risk factors. These are some of the things expectant moms should do:
- Get early prenatal care, so that your doctor can check you over and make sure that you are healthy before the pregnancy progresses much more; the doctor can check for high blood pressure, blood sugar levels, low blood iron, any existing infections, etc.
- Put on the recommended weight during your pregnancy
- Avoid smoking, alcohol or illegal drugs, which also carry other serious or life-threatening risks besides premature delivery
- Eat a healthy, natural and balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables
- Engage in light exercise during your pregnancy, such as walking (get your doctor’s okay first)
- Avoid and manage stress
By Jamell Andrews