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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Neonatology
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1523952
This article is part of the Research Topic Maternal and Infant Nutrition: Impact on Breast Milk, Infant Gut Microbiota and Health Development View all 5 articles
Sex-differences in Mothers' Own Milk and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes in Preterm Infants
Provisionally accepted
Tingting Zhao 1
Aolan Li 2
Xiaolin Chang 2
Wanli Xu 3 Tyler Quinn 4
Jie Chen 5
Adam Matson 6
Ming-Hui Chen 2
Sarah Taylor 7 Xiaomei Cong 4*- 1 School of Nursing, Columbia University, New York City, New York, United States
- 2 Department of Statistics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States
- 3 School of Nursing, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States
- 4 School of Nursing, Yale University, Orange, Connecticut, United States
- 5 College of Nursing, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, United States
- 6 Connecticut Children's Medical Center, Hartford, Connecticut, United States
- 7 Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States
To identify sex-specific feeding patterns and associations with growth and neurodevelopment in preterm infants during NICU through 2 years of corrected age (CA).A cohort study was conducted with 216 preterm infants (gestational age 28 0/7 to 32 0/7 weeks).Daily feeding regimens, including mother's own milk (MOM), human donor milk, and formula; daily growth; acute and chronic pain/stress were documented during NICU. NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale (NNNS) (36 to 38 postmenstrual age), and Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (Bayley) Edition III (1 and 2 years of CA) were measured.Between week 9 to 16 after birth, only females showed a positive association between growth zscore and proportion of MOM intake before week 8 (p<0.05). Sex-differentiated associations between MOM and stress were observed (p < 0.05). MOM proportion was positively correlated with language or cognitive scores at 2 years of CA in females (p = 0.01), this correlation not evident in males.We discovered a sex-specific "window of opportunity" for feeding, growth and risk predictors for neurodevelopment up to 2 years of CA. These insights may inform development of tailored feeding regimens, potentially mitigating growth and development differences observed between males and females.
Keywords: preterm, neurodevelopement, feeding, Sex, breastmilk
Received: 06 Nov 2024; Accepted: 11 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhao, Li, Chang, Xu, Quinn, Chen, Matson, Chen, Taylor and Cong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xiaomei Cong, School of Nursing, Yale University, Orange, 06477, Connecticut, United States
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