Premature Babies NEED Breast Milk!

A study published in the October issue of Pediatrics states that premature babies should get breast milk during their hospital stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The report shows that it boosts overall intelligence and mental development.

Many premature babies are fed intravenously in the NICU, but the study found that regardless of how they received the breast milk, they received higher scores on intelligence tests at 30 months of age than those children not given breast milk as infants.

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development supported the study. The director, Dr. Duane Alexander, states, "These findings strongly suggest that, whenever possible, preterm infants should routinely be given breast milk during their stay in the intensive care unit." If you have a baby in the NICU, insist that your breast milk be given. Even in the beginning stages of lactation, when you have colostrum and it's only teaspoons worth, it is STILL worth giving. Swabbing the inside of the baby's mouth with the colostrum has been shown to greatly strengthen the premature baby's immune system and babies who receive mother's milk go home much faster than those who do not.