Children's Hospital Colorado

Analyzing Breast Milk to Improve Nutrition

9/11/2024 1 min. read

A baby wrapped in a white fuzzy blanket drinks milk from a bottle that is held by an adult hand. A small machine is next to the baby.

In early 2022, Children’s Hospital Colorado’s lactation team began using a milk analyzer program to support babies in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The goal of the device, called a Miris HMA, is to analyze macronutrients in human milk to allow for tailored fortification for preterm and undernourished babies. This is just one of the many tools currently used to ensure babies in the Children’s Colorado NICU get the nutrition and support they need to thrive.

By using the milk analyzer, the team can pinpoint the macronutrient content of an individual’s breast milk to better understand the amount of fat, carbohydrates and protein present in that sample. This allows the medical team to fortify the milk to best suit a baby’s needs.

While this was the original goal of the milk analyzer, over time, the team has found that it can be helpful in diagnosing babies with underlying growth issues, according to Amy Hill, MSN.

“Through analyzing samples, we found that it wasn’t always the mom’s milk that was the issue. Their milk was doing a great job meeting their infant’s nutritional needs, and in many cases, there was more that we needed to investigate with the infant,” Hill says. “For instance, there may have been an unknown genetic component or condition affecting nutrient absorption and causing them not to grow appropriately. The beautiful part about the data we receive is that it improves patient outcomes by better equipping our staff to create tailored feeding plans based on reliable information.”

In addition to the milk analyzer, the team uses a centrifuge to remove fat from milk, providing a higher level of care for infants in need of a low-fat diet. This is particularly useful for babies with a condition called chylothorax, which is an accumulation of lymphatic fluid within the pleural space. Fat can add to this problem, so providers needed a way to remove it. This allows infants to drink breast milk rather than transitioning to a low-fat formula.

Together with the skilled care of the lactation team and carefully developed protocols, these tools are improving outcomes.