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Stress and Breast Milk Study In the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Completed
Conditions
Breast Feeding
Breast Milk Expression
Stress
Registration Number
NCT03617549
Lead Sponsor
University of Rochester
Brief Summary

The overall goal of this research is to clarify the relationship between reported maternal stress, biological measures of maternal stress, breast milk biomarkers and milk quantity. Our primary hypothesis is that measures of maternal stress are associated with cortisol, cytokines, and other stress markers in the blood, which impacts breast milk quantity and composition and which may impact infant health.

Detailed Description

Not available

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status
COMPLETED
Sex
Female
Target Recruitment
27
Inclusion Criteria
  • Baby will remain in mom's legal custody
  • Intends to exclusively breastfeed during the NICU stay
  • Has kept a daily log of milk expression (pump or hand expression) with date/time/quantity since birth of their child
  • Less than 7 days postpartum
Exclusion Criteria
  • Baby and mother are to be separated due to legal custody issues
  • Medical contraindication to breastfeeding
  • Non-English speaking
  • Unable to answer a written survey in English
  • More than 50% of infant intake is not mother's own milk at 4 weeks postpartum

Study & Design

Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Study Design
Not specified
Primary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Correlation between secretory IgA levels in mother's serum and reported stress1 month

Mother's stress will be measured using the The Parent Stress Scale: Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. This scale ranges from 1-130 with higher numbers indicating more stress.

Serum will be collected from mothers at enrollment and 4 weeks postpartum. Maternal venipuncture will be used to collect an 0.5mL aliquot of whole blood at the time of mother's first morning pump session in the neonatal intensive care unit. IgA will be quantitated using the Millipore Magpix 100 System. Multivariate regression analysis will be used to test for correlations.

Secondary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

University of Rochester Medical Center NICU

🇺🇸

Rochester, New York, United States

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