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Biological Properties Of Breast Milk

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Abstract

Imagine a tiny baby born at only thirty weeks and weighs in at 3lbs 5oz. This baby is now considered to be a premature infant. When this happens to a newborn they are immediately taken to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to be assessed and possibly assisted with involuntary actions such as breathing and temperature control. The infant’s body might not be developed enough to regulate blood glucose, fight off infection, or maintain proper liver function. The most substantial concern in premature infants in weight gain. The best way to tackle most of the complications that come with a premature birth is breast milk. Depending on the level of maturity, the newborn can either breastfeed directly from the breast, or the milk can …show more content…

Whether the newborn is being fed through intravenous (IV) or a nasogastric/orogastric (NG/OG) tube it will still be important to try and establish an emotional bond not only for the mother, but for the newborn as well.
Newborns have shown to make greater advances in maturity when there is skin-to-skin contact, also known as Kangaroo Care. The benefits of Kangaroo Care coincide with the benefits of the actual mother’s milk. The benefits include; increasing the newborns system immunity, facilitates the parent to newborn bonding, maintains the physiological ability, and also optimizes breastfeeding (Shiau, Anderson, 1997). A quantitative study was done on Kangaroo Care in 1993 that shows during kangaroo care the sample group of newborns showed pulse, oxygen and respiratory rate all within normal limits (Gale, Frank & Lund, 1993). This is very important for newborn premature infants because respiration rate is a common issue as well as regulating temperature. If a newborn is skin-to-skin with their parent, the body heat from the parent will help the premature infant increase and maintain their own temperature. The reason a premature infant would need an NG/OG tube could be because their instinct to suckle is not fully developed or matured, their swallow could be underdeveloped, or a mixture of both depending on how premature the newborn

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