Breast milk - not only good for babies, but clever too

It is no secret that breast milk is considered by many to be one of the world's most nutritious drinks, however, it seems that Nature's 'wonder' liquid may also be more clever than previously thought.

During a recent study, Flinders University PhD student Dani-Louise Bryan discovered that breast milk may have the ability to change its composition to help boost the immune system of a sick infant, even if the mother is not sick herself.

Ms Bryan, who is a student of Paediatrics and Child Health, conducted the study at Flinders Medical Centre where she tested 99 mothers, 63 of whom were breastfeeding healthy babies and 36 of whom were breastfeeding infants sick with Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), a form of bronchiolitis.

In their first 12 months babies are very susceptible to RSV, which has been identified as one of the triggers of childhood asthma.

After analysing the samples she had collected, Ms Bryan discovered that the milk samples collected from the mothers of the babies with RSV contained more protective cells than the samples collected from the mothers of the healthy infants.

"What I found was that there were significant changes between the samples. In particular there was a large increase in the number of leukocytes, or white blood cells, that are present in the breast milk from the mothers of the sick babies," Ms Bryan said.

"We already know the importance of white blood cells in fighting off illness, but what I found was that there were no clinical symptoms of illness in the mothers of the sick babies, yet the milk still contained these higher levels of cells. From this we concluded that the breast milk seemed to respond to the virus in order to help prime the immune systems of the sick babies."

Ms Bryan, who recently presented her findings at the Australian Society for Medical Research scientific conference, said the study had "highly significant potential" for research into exposing mothers to more healthy bacteria in order to improve the quality of their milk. She also said it was likely that the same reaction could be triggered in breast milk in the case of other infant illnesses.

"There is still so much that we have yet to uncover about breast milk," she said. "For instance, a lot has been written and said about the fact that babies who are fed infant formulas are not as healthy as those that are breastfed. If we can gain a better understanding of breast milk, perhaps we can then use that knowledge to improve the quality of those infant formulas - there are so many possibilities."

Ms Bryan is currently in the process of developing a proposal for a National Health & Medical Research Council Fellowship grant to continue her research.

Item provided courtesy of Flinders University