Research: Human milk provides critical immune protection to breastfed infants

Quick Summary: A recent review paper gives an insight into how human milk shapes the innate and adaptive infant immune systems.

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The story of the connection between breast milk and the infant immune system is absolutely fascinating.

A recent review paper by Bassel Dawod, Dr Meghan Azad (who is featured in our Breast Milk course) and colleagues gives a brilliant insight into how human milk shapes the innate and adaptive infant immune systems.

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About a baby’s immune system

Here are some of the main points summarised in the paper by Dawod B. et al., (2021):

• A baby’s immune system starts to develop in utero.
• The development of the baby’s immune system continues after birth.
• Human milk plays a critical role in this process.
• Human milk contains a long list of components that influence the developing immune systems in a breastfed infant.
• These components include: immunoglobulins, immune cells, microbes, mucins, cytokines, soluble receptors and human milk oligosaccharides.
• Breast milk provides immunoglobulins (also known as antibodies)…