Interactions between preeclampsia and composition of the human milk: what do we know?

Abstract

Purpose: Preeclampsia (PE) is a gestational hypertensive syndrome characterized by a complex disease with variable clinical manifestation. An aspect of increased interest is the possible effect of PE on the mammary gland (and therefore on breast milk composition) considering that a mother’s own milk is always considered the first choice for the nutrition of all neonates. Human milk (HM) is a unique food believed to contain biological factors involved in both short and long-term benefits. This article aims to review the published papers on this topic and to offer additional insights on the role of this gestational pathology on the composition of HM.

Materials and methods: This review was performed by searching the MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINHAL, and Cochrane Library databases.

Results: A total of 15 articles were selected.

Conclusions: Overall, the findings from the literature suggest that PE can alter the composition of HM milk. Nevertheless, the number of studies in this field are scarce, and the related protocols present some limitation, for example, evaluating the variability of just a few specific milk biochemical markers in association with this syndrome.

Keywords:

• Human milk
• breastfeeding
• preeclampsia
• gestational hypertension
• preterm newborns

Authors’ contributions

CP has made a substantial contribution to the conception, design, and drafting of the manuscript. AC has been involved in drafting the manuscript and revising it critically for its important intellectual content. EB and FC revised the manuscript critically for its important intellectual content and gave the final approval of the version to be published. All of the authors read and approved the final version of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).