Helping Micro-Preemies – A Guest Post from Kylie at Prolacta Bioscience

Thanks for letting me share this message with your readers! I am happy to spread awareness about the importance of neonatal nutrition and the need for donor breast milk to help save the lives of premature infants in the neonatal intensive care unit. Ever since my own baby spent time in the NICU, this has been an important cause for me. I really enjoy my work with Prolacta and getting the word out about what they’re doing.

Springtime always gives me a chance to reflect on how grateful I am to be a mom. For more than two years, as I struggled to have a baby, Mother’s Day was a horrible reminder of what I didn’t have. When we were finally blessed with our little boy, I didn’t have a picture-perfect experience in the hospital. Instead, my baby was whisked off to the NICU immediately. It was so hard to celebrate finally being a mother while I was watching him struggle to breathe. Four days later we were able to bring our new son home, and he is now a bright, active, curious two-year-old.   

Although my son wasn’t a preemie, the experience of the NICU made a huge impression on me. Instead of snuggling their newborn close, and breastfeeding if they want to, preemie moms have to wait, watch, and worry. They are concerned about grams – not ounces – of weight gained or lost, feeding tubes, PICC lines, dangerous conditions such as NEC, and hundreds of other things they weren’t aware of 24 hours before.

Premature babies, especially micro-preemies, have special nutritional needs. They need more energy to grow, and because they grow at a rapid pace, they also need more protein, minerals and other nutrients. A new guideline by the American Academy of Pediatrics says that all premature infants should be fed only human milk (and not formula or bovine additives). Breast milk alone, however, is not always sufficient for the specific needs of a preemie.

In some cases, doctors may decide to add a human milk fortifier to breast milk for premature-infant feedings. Human milk fortifiers are intended to address a premature baby’s nutritional requirements by providing additional protein, calories, vitamins and minerals.

The only 100% human milk-based human milk fortifier currently available is made by Prolacta Bioscience. It is called Prolact+ H2MF. The other brands prescribed are made from cow milk. Clinical studies have shown that when added to human milk, Prolact+ H2MF combined with mother’s own milk or donor milk reduced the odds of developing the dangerous intestinal condition necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) by 77% in infants weighing between 500 and 1250g or less at birth, when compared to those fed cow milk fortifier or preterm infant formula. These babies fit in the palm of your hand.

The Prolacta product is made from breast milk  donated by healthy, nursing mothers who have undergone extensive medical and social screening. (similar to the blood donor screening process). Their breast milk is collected, tested, pasteurized and formulated into Prolact+ H2MF, or standardized donor milk products (sometimes used with Prolact+ H2MF if the mother’s milk is not available) which is manufactured under strict quality-control processes to ensure safe, consistent, high quality nutrient content.

Prolacta never charges a parent for their products. The cost of Prolact+ H2MF s is, in most cases, under two percent of the total cost of care. In the US, the cost is typically paid by private insurance, Medicaid, or covered by the hospital. A recent study estimates use of the Prolacta product results in an average $8,000 savings per patient stay.

If you or someone you love has a micro preemie in the NICU, or if you are interested in becoming a milk donor, you can find ou more about Prolacta’s human milk products and breast milk donor programs on their website.

Thanks Kylie for such a wonderful post.  What a wonderful program this is!