Human Milk Research, More to Learn?

Milk production is a unique characteristic of mammals that all share a common ancestry. This, together with evolutionary adaptation, needs to be considered when investigating the biology of milk and lactation. Human milk is a dynamic secretion of nutritive and bioactive components that support infant development during the first 6 months of life and beyond. Hence, human milk is the recommended sole nutrition source for infants during the first 6 months of age, while continued breastfeeding is recommended after introduction of weaning and family food. Analytics allowed for a detailed description of components and their variability within and among mothers fueling interest of pediatricians and biologists to investigate the role of milk and its individual components for infant development. The variation in its composition throughout lactation and in response to maternal factors such as genetics and environment provide the basis to look for associations to infant health and development outcomes, with HMO concentrations being a prime example.