Pat writes:
<And the conclusion of several studies is that the bacteria count
decreases
continually for up to 8 days.>

Once, nearly 30+ years ago at the height of my hospital career, when I
was promoted to a new position as "maternity clinician" (no definition or
rigid job description-they just wanted a lot of changes made in OB
nursing practice back in the days when perinatal medicine was being
"birthed" and SGA, LGA, cold stress, newborn hypoglycemia, jaundice, etc.
concepts began emanating from the research centers), I talked the PhD in
charge of the clinical laboratory into doing some cultures on two samples
of breastmilk-one expressed by hand, and one removed with a sterilized
"bicycle horn" pump. (That's all our hospital had back then.)

He was completely mystified by the fact that the samples at 24 and 48
hours had fewer germs than he found in the fresh specimen.

I must have asked a question about publication or something, as I
remember him telling me that he didn't think it was a good idea as he
couldn't explain the results and didn't know what to do with the
information!!!

Thank heaven the times have changed, . . . somewhat!

Jean
**********
K. Jean Cotterman RNC, IBCLC
Dayton, Ohio USA

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