Review: dual benefits, compositions, recommended storage, and intake duration of mother's milk

TL;DR

This review synthesizes extensive literature on mother's milk, highlighting its health benefits, variability in composition due to maternal factors, and the importance of proper storage and intake duration for optimal infant health.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of mother's milk variability, storage effects, and personalized fortification strategies based on recent literature mining.

Findings

Mother's milk composition varies with maternal diet and health.

Proper storage practices are crucial for nutrient preservation.

Individualized fortification may enhance infant health outcomes.

Abstract

Breastfeeding benefits both infants and mothers. Nutrients in mother's milk help protect infants from multiple diseases including infections, cancers, diabetes, gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases. We performed literature mining on 31,496 mother's-milk-related abstracts from PubMed and the results suggest the need for individualized mother's milk fortification and proper maternal supplementations (e.g. probiotics, vitamin D), because mother's milk compositions (e.g. fatty acids) vary according to maternal diet and responses to infection in mothers and/or infants. We review at details the variability observed in mother's milk compositions and its possible health effects in infants. We also review the effects of storage practices on mother's milk nutrients, recommended durations for mother's milk intake and the associated health benefits.