I been looking at some info about storage and administration of expressed breastmilk. The references I've seen show that vitamin A, C and riboflavin are quite subseptable to photodegradation. I was wondering whether and what precautions those of you working with sick / premature infants take to reduce degredation of these vitamins? I'm talking about fresh expressed milk, not pasteurised banked milk -  gee, wish I was, but The Netherlands is certainly not geared up to milk banking - good heavens, what a thought!

Sara Bernard
The Netherlands

ps here are the refs I've been looking at:

Arch Dis Child  1987 Feb;62(2):161-5 
Human milk vitamin content after pasteurisation, storage, or tube feeding.
Van Zoeren-Grobben D, Schrijver J, Van den Berg H, Berger HM.
"Tube feeding significantly lowered the concentrations of vitamins C (44%) and B6 (19%), and exposure to
phototherapy seemed to lower the vitamin C concentration (53%) further. Low
birthweight infants have increased vitamin requirements. Vitamin losses in
expressed human milk before or during feeding may increase the incidence of
vitamin deficiencies in these babies."

Acta Paediatr Scand  1985 Jan;74(1):40-4 
Susceptibility of riboflavin and vitamin A in breast milk to photodegradation
and its implications for the use of banked breast milk in infant feeding.
Bates CJ, Liu DS, Fuller NJ, Lucas A.
Up to 50% of the riboflavin and up to 70% of the vitamin A in human drip breast
milk samples were destroyed during controlled exposure to daylight, either in
translucent polythene bottles, or where the milk was pumped through naso-gastric
tubing from a syringe to mimic the conditions of enteral feeding.






             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html