Hassan Ahmed Ali, Taha Zainab, Al Nafeesah Abdullah, Adam Ishag
Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum, Sudan.
College of Natural and Health Sciences, Zayed University, United Arab Emirates.
Sudan J Paediatr. 2019;19(2):84-87. doi: 10.24911/SJP.106-1556954798.
Breastfeeding is indeed the foundation for life and gives growing children a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to grow and develop to their full potential. There are considerable studies on the role of maternal contribution to human milk components. It would be very important and interesting to explore the existence of a paternal contribution into the composition of human milk. Proceeding on this track, there is an abundant evidence that supports the hypothesis of paternal contribution in human milk composition. This evidence could be strengthened by the fact that a small population of the fetal cells migrate during pregnancy and stay for long time in the maternal body. This phenomenon is known as microchimerism. It has been well documented that some of these cells are of mature immunological and hematopoietic stem cells character. As the fetal parts contain 50% from each parent, any fetal parts in the maternal body (i.e., fetal microchimerism) should contain paternal components as well. The paternal genetic material is more responsible for the determination of the fetal sex (female XX or male XY). The variations in maternal human milk component that was clearly understood as related to child sex will substantially provide a solid basis for the investigation of the new hypothesis. In this short report, we conclude by briefly foregrounding the proposed role for paternal contribution on human milk composition for consideration and suggesting new directions for future research that would shed light on this subject.
母乳喂养确实是生命的基础，为成长中的儿童提供了一个一生仅有一次的机会，使其充分发挥生长发育的潜力。关于母体对母乳成分的贡献作用，已有大量研究。探索父体对母乳成分的贡献是否存在，将非常重要且有趣。沿着这条思路，有大量证据支持父体对母乳成分有贡献这一假说。孕期少量胎儿细胞迁移并长期留存于母体的现象，即微嵌合现象，可强化这一证据。有充分文献记载，其中一些细胞具有成熟免疫和造血干细胞特征。由于胎儿部分各有50%来自父母双方，母体体内的任何胎儿部分（即胎儿微嵌合）都应包含父体成分。父体遗传物质对胎儿性别（女性XX或男性XY）的决定作用更大。明确与孩子性别相关的母体母乳成分差异，将为这一新假说的研究提供坚实基础。在本简短报告中，我们通过简要强调父体对母乳成分贡献的拟议作用以供考虑，并提出未来研究的新方向以阐明这一主题来作总结。
