Infant Nutrition and Health

Human milk is a remarkably complex biological fluid whose composition — spanning bioactive proteins like lactoferrin, immune-shaping oligosaccharides, and a living microbial community — directly shapes how newborns grow, develop neurologically, and defend against infection. For preterm infants, whose gut and immune systems are still forming outside the womb, these components carry particular weight: human milk feeding is one of the strongest known protections against necrotizing enterocolitis, a devastating intestinal condition that disproportionately affects the earliest-born babies. Researchers are working to understand precisely which components drive these benefits, how donor milk or fortification alters them, and whether targeted supplementation with probiotics or isolated oligosaccharides can replicate or extend the protections that mother's own milk provides. How the microbiota that human milk helps establish in early life connects to long-term immune and metabolic health remains an especially active and unresolved question.

Works

65,479

Total citations

1,122,163

Keywords

Human Milk CompositionPreterm InfantsNecrotizing EnterocolitisOligosaccharidesLactoferrinGrowth Outcomes