by BabyCenter Featured Expert posted in Parenting

By: Dr. Tracy Shafizadeh
Human milk is amazing. We know that human milk's basic function is to provide complete nutrition to an infant in its first months of life, but researchers are now learning that it may also provide nutrition to more than just the baby.
Breast milk contains human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), complex carbohydrates that can't be used by babies' own digestive systems. The fact that these HMOs are in breast milk is no accident, however -- in fact, it takes a lot of energy for moms to produce them. If these HMOs take so much energy to produce, and babies aren?t able to directly absorb them, why are they in human milk"

It?s bacteria food, not baby food! While HMOs aren?t digestible by babies, they are digestible by the healthy bacteria that naturally live in the digestive tracts of infants. That bacteria is called B. infantis. Interestingly, B. infantis feeds on these costly-to-produce complex carbohydrates found in human milk. Our scientists discovered that the main reason the body goes through the trouble of producing HMOs is to feed the B. infantis establishing itself in the baby?s gut, giving the baby a head start on a lifetime of healthy gut bacteria and the health benefits that appear to accompany it.
HMO-fed B. infantis has been found to accelerate the maturation of babies' immune responses, limit excessive inflammation, and improve digestion in a number of other ways. B. infantis reduces po...