Drip breast milk: it's composition, collection and pasteurization.

"Drip breast milk" is that milk which spontaneously drips from the contralateral breask during the suckling of an infant. Biochemically and immunologically, pooled drip milk resembled pooled mature expressed breast milk, although it has a lower fat concentration. About 15% of lactating women are capable of producing drip milk; volumes produced are up to 188 ml/donor/day. A milk bank is described which processes 1400 liters of drip milk/yr. Heat treatment of this milk with a semi-automated holder pasteurizer caused a 21% reduction in IgA concentration and a 36% reduction in lysozyme activity, as well as a decrease in the ability of the milk to inhibit the growth of E. coli. In comparison with boiling, pasteurization was as effective in reducing total bacterial content provided the milk initially contained fewer than 10(6) bacteria/ml.