Web site says how human milk saves infants

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- A Web site by the University of California, San Diego Medical Center offers information on how to provide human milk to premature and underweight infants.

Dr. Jae Kim, medical director of the Supporting Premature Infant Nutrition Program at UC San Diego Medical Center, said infants born prematurely sometimes develop the infection necrotizing enercolitis, the most common life-threatening gastrointestinal emergency in newborns.

Necrotizing enercolitis causes intense inflammation and acute intestinal necrosis or death, compromising 1 percent to 5 percent of all neonatal intensive care unit admissions and affecting 10 percent of infants born at less than 3 pounds.

"One of the goals of this Web site is to help fellow hospitals adapt our model of human milk nutrition in their own neonatal intensive care units," Kim said in a statement.

"Since the implementation of our feeding protocols, we have seen rates of human milk feeding go up by 15 percent. We'd love to see this become a nationwide trend."

Before the program started, the rate of necrotizing enercolitis at UC San Diego Medical Center was 5.8 percent; last year it was less than 1 percent, Kim said.

The Web site is at: http://health.ucsd.edu/women/spin/.