Breast Milk Consumption in Preterm Neonates and Cardiac Shape in Adulthood.

ABSTRACT:

Background and objectives

Preterm birth relates to long-term alterations in cardiac morphology and function. Understanding whether preterm postnatal life is a tractable period of cardiovascular development that can be positively altered by nutrition is relevant to long-term outcomes. We hypothesized that being fed human breast milk during early postnatal life is beneficial to long-term cardiac structure and function in preterm-born individuals compared with infant formulas.

Methods

A total of 926 preterm-born infants originally took part in a randomized controlled trial of postnatal milk-feeding regimens between 1982 and 1985 across 5 different UK centers. Preterm-born individuals were randomly assigned to either breast milk donated by unrelated lactating women or nutrient-e

SUBMITTER: Lewandowski AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6198929 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature