IMPACT OF DONOR MILK ON CLINICAL PARAMETRES STUDIED AMONG VERY LOW BIRTH INFANTS OF AN NICU OF A TERTIARY TEACHING HOSPITAL

Background: Low birth infants account for 27% of total live births in India. India has a large burden of very low birth weight (VLBW) babies, i.e. those who are <1500 g, account for about 5% of all live births(1) and their nutritional rehabilitation is major concern.But every infant is unable to benefit from mothers milk because of maternal illness, death or lactation failure. This is when donors milk help for these VLBW infants who are unable to get their own mothers milk. Hence, understanding the impact of donor milk on various clinical parameters affecting a VLBWinfant is important. Aim: To study impact of donor milk on various parameters studied among VLBWinfants of an NICU of a tertiary teaching hospital. Methods: Ours is a retrospective comparative study over a period of 10 months in an NICU of a tertiary teaching hospital. 119 infants were enrolled. The data was collected from case records of these infants. Appropriate test of significance was applied to get the results. Results: In our study, the average length of NICU stay was 5.1 days lesser and overall weight centiles on dischargefor donor milk given babies was higherthan those who were not given donor milk. There was a significant association between administration of donor milk lack of caffeine administration(p=0.042).There was no significant association of donors milk with RDS(p=0.08), duration of mechanical ventilation for >96 hours(p=0.58), bronchopulmonary dysplasia(p=0.55), inotropes administration(p=0.11),IVH(p=0.5029) and sepsis(p=0.68). Conclusion: By seeing the beneficial effects of donor milk on weight and overall hospitalization duration, promoting milk donation in postnatal wards and establishment of community human milk banks we can improve quality of health care and nutrition to VLBW babies and thus decrease infant mortality rate.