The Effect of Oropharyngeal Therapy with Mother's Own Milk for Prevention of Late Onset Sepsis in Premature Infants

Background: Mother's own milk contains antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and immunomodulatory biofactors that may lower the incidence of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and late-onset sepsis (LOS) and improve short-term outcomes. Objective: This study was performed to investigate the effect of oropharyngeal therapy with mother's own milk for Prevention of LOS in premature infants. Materials and Methods: This Narrative Review reviews the search engines and databases of PubMed, Web of Science, Cochran, Google Scholar, Civilica, SID, Magiran, Noormags, Irandoc, Elmnet in English and Persian with the keywords oropharyngeal therapy and "Milk, Human", colostrum, Sepsis, "Infant, Premature", "Randomized Controlled Trial" selected by MeSH and their Persian equivalents, from ۱۸ to ۱۹ ۲۰۲۳. Published articles were limited to the years ۲۰۲۰ and later. From ۱۰۸۹ obtained articles, the full text of ۱۲ articles used for writing this article. Results: Some studies showed that oropharyngeal therapy of mother's own milk is a safe and simple procedure that may potentially decrease the incidences of NEC, LOS, and severe intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) in preterm infants. However, in some clinical trial studies, no difference was found between the two intervention and control groups regarding the investigated outcomes. Conclusions: Well-designed large-scale studies are needed to more accurately and reliably evaluate oropharyngeal therapy of mother's own milk to prevent LOS in preterm infants.

Keywords:

Oropharyngeal Therapy , Mother's Own Milk , Colostrum , Sepsis , Premature Infants.