According to one study, the more breast milk premature newborns are fed while in neonatal intensive care, the better their brain development.
The cerebral cortex—the region of the brain responsible for learning and thinking—is often undeveloped in premature babies, but it quickly matched that of term babies in infants who ingested high doses of breast milk.
How Can Breast Milk Help in Infant’s Brain Development?
According to experts, feeding premature newborns breast milk may help lessen the developmental and learning issues linked with preterm birth.
University researchers scanned the brains of 212 premature newborns who were part of the Theirworld Edinburgh Birth Cohort, a project that tracks the development of premature babies from birth to maturity.
The cohort included 135 kids born before 32 weeks of pregnancy and 77 newborns born at full term. Researchers gathered data on how premature newborns were fed during neonatal critical care, and all babies had brain scans about 40 weeks after conception.
Cynthia Rogers is the study’s senior investigator and an assistant professor of child psychiatry at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in the United States.
Babies born before their due dates typically have underdeveloped brains, but breastfeeding has been demonstrated to be beneficial in other areas of development, with babies fed more breastmilk having greater brain sizes. It demonstrates a link between brain volume and cognitive development.
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Premature Babies’ Brain Development
The study included 77% of newborns in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. “To see whether it was able to detect the impact of breastmilk on the brain in this early life and whether the benefits appeared rapidly or developed over time,” the researchers wrote.
The amount of breastmilk fed to the newborns in the NICU was measured by the researchers. Doctors then performed brain scans.
The researchers discovered a remarkable finding. Premature neonates who ingested at least 50% breast milk on a daily basis had higher brain tissue and cortical-surface area by their due dates than those who consumed significantly less breast milk.
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