Does discarding the first few millilitres of breast milk improve the bacteriological quality of bank breast milk?
The bacteriology of 20 paired samples of breast milk was analysed to find out if discarding the first few millilitres would reduce the amount of bacterial contamination in breast milk donated to a hospital milk bank. The first sample was the initial 2-3 ml collected from the opposite breast to that first suckled by the baby, and the second was a midstream sample from the same breast. There was no significant difference in the colony counts between the paired samples, and in no instance did the bacterial flora of the second sample differ from that of the first.
D001419:Bacteria / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D008895:Milk, Human / Q000382:microbiology*; D013048:Specimen Handling / Q000379:methods*