More on professionals attitudes on blood-tinged milk: A survey from Italy

摘要

We read with interest the only available papers on blood-tinged milk by Phelps et al. Although benefits of human milk (HM) to both healthy and high-risk infants are well known, it is a common belief that blood-tinged milk may worsen gastrointestinal tolerance and, possibly, lead to unnecessary investigations for gastrointestinal bleeding or necrotizing enterocolitis. In their first work, Phelps et al. showed that the amount of blood necessary to tinge milk is very little, with a ratio of 1:10 000 between parts of red blood cells and milk to tinge it faintly pink, a ratio of 1:1000 to tinge it pink and of 1:100 to tinge it red. They showed that 75% of neonatal intensive care unit professionals from 18 hospitals in the western United States would discard milk if pink, raising to 98% if red. The most frequently cited reasons were fear of feeding intolerance and of unnecessary investigations for gastrointestinal bleeding or necrotizing enterocolitis.