The children’s hospital at Westchester Medical Center has a first-of-its-kind facility to process pre-term human milk for extreme low birthweight babies. WAMC’s Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Allison Dunne spoke with the head of the new donor milk bank at the hospital in Valhalla.
Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital’s donor milk program provides human milk for pre-term babies born at 28 weeks or earlier and who weigh less than 2.2 pounds, as well as to ill infants. Dr. Boriana Parvez is a neonatologist at the Children’s Hospital and director of the new specialized program for so-called micro-preemies.
“In 2015, we eliminated the use of formula. This produced amazing results. There was a reduction of necrotizing enterocolotis (NEC) by 70 percent. Necrotizing enterocolotis is a devastating disease which affects premature infants. It’s a severe inflammation of the small intestines,” Parvez says. “The risk of developing this disease is much higher if a baby receives formula rather than human milk, and it may associated with a 50 percent mortality.”
She says pre-term milk is the optimal nutrition for pre-term babies as it is richer in protein, calories and anti-infective factors than full-term milk. To boost the growth of premature infants, the Liquid Gold Preemie Donor Milk Bank at the Children’s Hospital analyzes and enriches human milk to the exact nutritional needs of each premature infant.
“We estimated, based on the breastfeeding rate, based on the number of premature babies, the amount of milk that we’ll be needing, and then we began building of a pre-term milk bank,” says Parvez. “This is a very unique program. There is no such milk bank in the country. There are few hospital-based milk banks. So our ? of our milk bank is not unique, but the fact that we are collecting, processing and distributing premature donor milk is the most unique aspect of our program.”
Dr. Parvez hopes the new program cuts the rate of the severe intestinal disease, or NEC, further, or even eliminates it. And she is conducting research on another complication seen in premature babies.
“We have observed another very interesting phenomenon which no one has reported until now. Ever since we implemented the exclusive human milk diet in our premature patient population, we observed a significant decrease in another very severe complication of prematurity — that is called intraventricular hemorrhage, or IVH. The rate of severe IVH in extremely premature babies is around 10 percent. And severe IVH is associated definitely with neurodevelopmental deficits long-term,” Parvez says. “So right now we have a manuscript in preparation. We showed that there is a reduction in severe IVH down to 4 percent. So obviously we want to sustain these health benefits. And the next focus will be to optimizing the growth of this baby. So I’m thinking that… Our hope is that as we primarily utilize premature donor milk from our milk bank, especially in the first, most critical period of babies’, premature babies’ course, in the NICU, that their growth will be improved.”
In addition to improving the health of extreme premature babies, there could be a major cost-savings.
“One case of necrotizing enterocolotis costs about $300,000. And necrotizing enterocolotis is not only an acute disease that requires surgery, it requires longer hospital stays, but also impacts babies’ neuro development. So if children have... and also their ongoing gastrointestinal health. So some of these children may be life dependent as a result of this disease, to parental nutrition or IV nutrition,” says Parvez. “Many of them require long-term rehab services, early intervention services or long-term chronic care facility services. And that cost sometimes is estimated in the range of $1.2 million per baby for a lifetime.”
Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital’s Isaac & Naomi Kaplan Family Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit cares for more than 700 neonatal patients each year, about 150 of whom are born at less than three pounds.
