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Purpose: Maternal concerns for health and growth in prematurely born infants affect the breastfeeding duration., Method: This prospective observational study evaluated whether maternal concerns regarding insufficient milk supply were supported by inadequate nutrients in human milk or low infant growth. The study followed mothers of 211 premature born infants for 6 months after delivery., Results: Of the 211 infants, 156 were not exclusively breastfed for the recommended 6 months after delivery. For 79 of these 156 infants, termination was due to maternal concerns regarding insufficient milk supply. There was no difference in human milk nutrients or infant growth when comparing infants who were exclusively breastfed with those who were not., Conclusion: Maternal concern regarding insufficient milk supply was the primary explanation for termination of exclusive breastfeeding after premature delivery. Concerns regarding insufficient milk supply were not found associated with inadequate nutrients in the human milk, nor with low infant growth., Implications: Breastfeeding support should remain in focus in this population., (Copyright © 2023 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: The Danish Health Authority (DHA) recommends diagnostic evaluation of infants who develop prolonged jaundice and a serum conjugated bilirubin (CB) concentration ≥ 17 μmol/l. This study aimed to assess the efficacy of the programme in identifying infants with biliary atresia (BA) or other liver disease. Infants born in the Central Denmark Region from 2016 to 2021 were investigated., Methods: A total of 693 infants were identified in the Central Biochemical Database (Labka). From a review of all medical records, CB measurements, results from diagnostic procedures and the final diagnosis were documented., Results: Four infants were identified with BA. They had a mean CB concentration of 105 μmol/l. A total of 33 infants were diagnosed with other cholestatic diseases; this group had a mean CB concentration of 58.9 μmol/l. The remaining 656 infants with a mean CB of 20.5 μmol/l recovered spontaneously without any sign of cholestatic disease. Approximately 75% of all HIDA scintigraphies (100/134) were conducted in 647 infants with a maximum CB concentration less-than 30 μmol/l. They all had bile drainage to the intestines. Among these infants, twelve were diagnosed as heterozygote for alfa-1-antitrypsin deficiency., Conclusion: The CB threshold limit recommended by the DHA detected all patients with BA, but its use leads to over-investigation and over-diagnosing., Funding: not relevant., Trial Registration: not relevant., (Articles published in the DMJ are “open access”. This means that the articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.)