Evaluation of Laboratory Methods for Measuring the Composition of Breast Milk

Research summary

Aim: To establish laboratory tests for measuring the composition of human breast milk Outline of research: This study involves the collection of 1-2 teaspoons of breast milk (up to 10 mls) from up to 30 women who are already expressing milk for their babies in the Oxford Newborn Care Unit, Women’s Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford The women are healthy volunteers and are recruited by virtue that their babies are NHS patients. Duration of participant involvement will be around 45 min. This includes time taken for the participant to provide informed consent, and also express 5-10 mL of breast milk. Most participants will produce a breast milk sample on a single occasion. The research milk samples will be used to evaluate the suitability of a range of laboratory tests for measuring hormones, cells, antibodies and metabolites in human milk. These laboratory tests will be used in future clinical studies to establish reference standards for key breast milk constituents, and to gain a greater understanding of how human milk influences the health and wellbeing of the breastfeeding infant. Justification: Human breast milk is a nutrient rich fluid, which additionally contains many factors with the potential to influence neonatal development, metabolism and health outcomes such as diabetes, obesity and neurodevelopment. However, little is known about the concentrations of these factors in human milk, and robust laboratory tests for measuring milk hormones have not been established.

Principal Investigator

Dr Fadil Hannan

Contact us

Email: osprea@wrh.ox.ac.uk

IRAS number

272907