It's late at night and I am behind on Lactnet but wanted to respond - Nancy,
if you have this reference handy somewhere, maybe you can post it.
There was a study done here in Norway showing the risk of not starting
enteral feeds with maternal colostrum, or in the absence of same, with
non-pasteurized donor milk, very early on even with tiny babies.  The
smallest baby born in my hospital in the past year was a 24 weeker and she
was LITTLE.  She was given colostrum about one minute after we managed to
express some from her mother's breast.  She didn't have an easy time of it
by any means but she never got any gut complications during her long
hospital stay, and she was stooling from day one.  Even though we are a
tertiary care center we do try to refer mothers to the national center if we
expect them to give birth before 26 weeks, but in this case that wasn't
possible.
I don't know of an NICU in Norway that would for one second consider putting
anything in a non-orally feeding baby's mouth but colostrum.  They wouldn't
dare, the risks are just too great.
Last year at the first Nordic breastfeeding conference in Stockholm, I heard
a Swedish breastfeeding researcher say that a premature baby who simply
smelled its mother's colostrum on a compress held before its nostrils,
showed improved blood oxygen saturation immediately.  Unfortunately I can
not recall which researcher said this and I need to get to bed so I can get
back in the trenches about 6 hours from now.  Mia?  Marit?  If you are
there, can you remember who it was?

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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