Introduction:

when own mother's breast milk is unavailable, donor human milk is the best option to guarantee the nutritional requirements of preterm or ill newborns.

Objectives:

to analyze the macronutrient composition of donor breast milk and its evolution over lactation periods.

Material and methods:

we retrospectively analyzed the nutritional composition of 822.423 L of donor breast milk from 160 donors at the human milk bank of a third-level hospital between February 1, 2017 and December 31, 2019.

Results:

lipid and carbohydrate composition remains constant throughout lactation. However, protein content decreases initially to increase again starting in the second year of lactation.

Conclusions:

donor human milk banks should be aware of the variations in macronutrient composition donor human milk shows in order to optimize nutrition for preterm newborns.

        · |     · |     · ( pdf )