Donor Human Milk Impact on Prevalence and Features of Necrotizing Enterocolitis in Hospital of LUHS

Abstract

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is one of the most dangerous diseases for newborns with high rates of mortality and serious outcomes. It is also one of diseases whose risk can be reduced by feeding human milk (HM) exclusively. However, mothers of premature newborns are not always able to provide as much milk as the infant needs. To ensure exclusive human milk diet for newborns, donor human milk banks are establishing all over the world. One of them was opened in Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LUHS) Hospital, Department of Neonatology in December 2016. Even though donor human milk (DHM) should not replace mother’s own milk (MOM), clinical studies suggest using it instead of formula since it lowers rates of NEC, modifies course of disease and improves feeding tolerance. The authorization of bioethics was received (LUHS Bioethics committee, No. BEC – MF - 21). We performed a retrospective study of 81 patients’ data. All patients were treated in LUHS Hospital department of neonatology, neonatal intensive care unit in 2010-2017 years. Inclusion criteria: 1) gestational age 32 weeks and lower 2) diagnosis of NEC 3) no congenital anomalies of digestive tract. Patients were assigned in two groups according to date of birth - control group (73 patients) – treated before donor human milk was available (2010 – 2016), intervention group (8 patients) – treated once donor human milk became available (late 2016, 2017 years). Groups were compared with the respect to ways of feeding (before the onset of NEC), demand of parenteral feeding, erythrocyte mass transfusion and outcomes of NEC. Chi-square and Man-Whitney U tests were used to identify differences between groups. The data was processed with MS Excel and SPSS/w 17.0. Results were considered significant where p<0.05. 1. Prevalence of NEC decreased significantly once donor human milk bank was established in LUHS Hospital, department of neonatology [...].