Breast milk is the best food that can be given to the newborn. This "biological gold" adapts to the nutritional needs of the baby at each stage of development and acts as an immune shield against diseases and infections.
Results of research focused on this intelligent substance that nature has endowed us with are often known, and we are still amazed at its incalculable benefits. A recent study has found that breast milk contains biomolecules that fight inflammation and infection.
The study has been carried out by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and published in 'Mucosal Immunology', and states that although these molecular signals had previously been identified in other organs and tissues in the body, it is the first time that they are all seen in the same place, breast milk.
The authors indicated that this is the first time that a wide variety of bioactive molecules of this type (known as specialized pro-resolution mediators -SPMs), including molecules that help eliminate infections, reduce inflammation, fight pain and heal wounds.
The funny thing is that when analyzing human milk samples from women with mastitis, an infection of the breast tissue that causes pain and inflammation, SPM levels were much lower and did not resolve inflammation and infection to the same extent as breast milk of samples without mastitis. This does not mean in any way that before a mastitis we must consider weaning, on the contrary, you have to breastfeed.
The team also tested cow's milk and infant formula milk and did not detect PMS levels.
One more argument as to why it is so important to feed the newborn with breast milk, whenever possible, since helps fight tissue inflammation and infections such as gastroenteritis, respiratory infections, otitis and necrotizing enterocolitis, a serious disease common in premature infants that causes irreversible damage to the intestine.
