[The nutritional value of raw breast milk in feeding premature babies with a birth weight of below 1500 g (author's transl)].

Raw milk expressed from the infant's own mother is the ideal initial nutrient, even for premature babies with a birth weight of below 1500 g. When these babies start to grow very rapidly from about the third week of life on, this milk is probably nutritionally inadequate. For babies with birth weights above 1500 g raw milk provided by the natural mother is the ideal nutrient at all times. This is a report of a simple and inexpensive system which enables us to collect breast milk and to test the bacterial count of each sample of milk. This milk is given to the babies without any heat treatment if the bacterial count is 10(3) per ml or less. Milk displaying bacterial counts of 10(4) to 10(5) per ml is boiled. Milk with higher bacterial counts is thrown away. Intensive counselling of the mothers as regards personal hygiene, with particular emphasis on breast hygiene and pumping technique improves the quality of the milk. In fact, 43% of the milk samples delivered to us have bacterial counts of below 10(4) per ml.