Episode Details
Back to Episodes#438 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Can Freeze-Dried Mother's Own Breast Milk Replace Commercial Fortifiers in the NICU?
Description
Dr. Bridget Young, researcher at the University of Rochester, shares early but promising work on using freeze-dried mother's own breast milk — including a skim milk fraction — as a fortifier for human milk feeds in the NICU. She explains why milk variability makes accuracy the central challenge in this approach, how her team validated a method using macronutrient analysis to consistently hit a target caloric density of 28 kcal per ounce, and why the skim milk fraction in particular can deliver a protein content that rivals commercial bovine fortifiers. She also introduces the concept of mother's own breast milk cream — a centrifuge-derived calorie booster that families in her unit have found deeply empowering — and lays out honestly what it would take to bring lactoengineering from a research setting into routine clinical practice.
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