Caloric profile of pasteurized milk in the human milk bank at a university hospital.

Objective: To verify the caloric and sanitary profile of human milk stored at the Human Milk Bank at Londrina University Hospital.

Methods: Cross-sectional study. Data were obtained from the Human Milk Bank registry regarding the source, the amount collected in liters, the amount of calories by liter assessed by crematocrit, and the acidity of human milk determined by titration in degrees Dornic.

Results: Between 2006 and 2009, 30,846 samples of human milk were collected from donors coming from different locations and analyzed. A total of 5,869L of milk were collected and distributed. From the total human pasteurized milk, 53,5% was classified as hypocaloric (<580kcal/L); 36.4% as caloric, and 8.3% as hypercaloric (>711kcal/L). Regarding the several locations where the milk was collected, the Human Milk Bank at Londrina University Hospital was the location in which a larger number of donations were observed in the three classifications. The result of the Dornic test for acidity of the collected milk revealed that 60.8% had 4.1º to 8.0º Dornic.

Conclusions: A large volume of the collected human milk is hypocaloric and appropriate for human consumption. There is the need to intensify collection procedures in order to meet the demand for hypercaloric milk for preterm newborn infants.