By Dr Aditi Kundoo, Medical Director, Cryoviva Life Sciences

Why Breast Milk Is About More Than Just Nutrition

Breastfeeding is the most recognized and recommended way to provide nutrition to infants. In addition to its nutritional properties, breast milk contains vital components such as antibodies, immune cells, cell signalling substances, hormones, HMOs, and other characteristics that help the baby’s immune system develop and their gut mature properly. These proven advantages have prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to encourage full breastfeeding for the first six months of life.

A Scientific Breakthrough: The Discovery of Stem Cells in Breast Milk

One of the major advancements in science within the last ten years has been the finding that breast milk consists of live stem cells. Hassiotou and co-authors have shown that human breast milk contains multipotent stem cells capable of developing into mesodermal, ectodermal, and endodermal cell types. Subsequent research has found that breast milk contains a mixture of cells, including stem/progenitor cells, epithelial cells, immune cells, and vesicles that carry out important biological roles.

What Do These Stem Cells Mean for a Baby’s Development?

While the specific physiological role of breast milk-derived stem cells in human infants isn’t completely understood yet, their existence confirms a significant biological principle: stem cells play a natural role in the early development of humans. Along with immunological cells and bioactive substances, they form part of the complex cellular environment through which mothers support their baby in the earliest stages of life.

Looking Beyond Breastfeeding: The Case for Preserving Newborn Stem Cells

This scientific observation raises a vital question for expectant parents. If nature equips breast milk with stem cells during infancy, shouldn’t the richest available source of a newborn’s own stem cells – available only at the moment of birth – also be considered for preservation?

Large populations of newborn stem cells found in umbilical cord blood and umbilical cord tissue already have established clinical applications. For over thirty years, medical practitioners around the world have used hematopoietic stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood to treat more than eighty haematological, immunological, metabolic, and bone marrow diseases – a practice that began in 1989, when Gluckman and colleagues performed the first successful transplant of this kind, as documented in the New England Journal of Medicine. These stem cells are also being extensively studied in regenerative medicine for their immunoregulatory properties.

Breastfeeding and Cord Blood Banking: Complementary, Not Competing Choices

Unlike breastfeeding, which continues throughout infancy, umbilical cord stem cells can only be collected once – at the moment of birth. If not preserved at that time, this natural resource is lost forever. It’s worth emphasizing that breastfeeding and umbilical cord stem cell banking are two very different, yet complementary, processes.

While breastfeeding supports an infant’s nutrition, protection, and personal development, banking stem cells from the umbilical cord serves as a resource for possible future treatment options made possible by regenerative medicine. As professionals in medicine, our role should be to help parents make informed decisions based on science. When we recognise that stem cells are present in both breast milk and the umbilical cord, we see that nature itself underscores their biological importance — one supports the baby from the very beginning of life, while the other preserves the opportunity to access beneficial cells for the future.