Dr.
Judith
Roepke, R.D., Ph.D., has answered many of your questions about
nutrition and dieting. Dr. Roepke is a perinatal nutritionist, researcher and
member of the Breastfeeding.com medical advisory board. Look for
more Q&A forums with Dr. Roepke in the future.
Is it necessary to add protein
to breastmilk?
| NAME: |
Becky |
| BABY'S NAME: |
Glory |
| BABY'S AGE: |
5 months |
|
BIRTH WEIGHT: |
9 lbs, 1oz |
| CURRENT WEIGHT: |
22 lbs |
This
is pertaining to my last baby, a preemie. He had swollen eyelids
at about 3-4 months and I was told that breast milk drops the
levels of protein at that age, which is no problem for a
full-term baby, but not good for a preemie. They wanted me to
supplement with formula 2-3 times per day, but I refused.
Instead, I purchased some "human milk fortifier" that
they had used in the hospital, and pumped once a day, adding the
fortifier. This seemed to fix the problem. My question is:
Is it
true that breastmilk changes significantly at 3-4 months, and
was there a better way to add the protein to avoid this problem?
It
is true that the concentration of protein does decrease in
breastmilk over time, but this is a dilution factor because the
volume of milk actually increases a bit during this time. The
other thing that is happening is that your baby is growing, so
although the total amount of protein the baby is taking in may
be about the same, the amount of protein per unit of body weight
does decrease. And, with a very rapidly growing premie, it could
well be that his protein needs were a little greater than your
breastmilk supplied.
I think that you did exactly the right thing to remedy your baby's
problem! I'm glad that the outcome was so successful.
Obviously, your current baby wouldn't need that
supplementation. She was a normal weight at birth (9 lbs 1 oz)
and wouldn't be growing as rapidly (in terms of her change in
weight per unit of body weight).
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