States Impact of Umbilical Cord Milking & Pasteurized Donor Human Milk on Necrotizing Enterocolitis

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a serious complication of prematurity, with associated high mortality. Care processes reported to reduce NEC rates include mother's own and donor human breast milk, placental transfusion, and probiotics. Our NICU instituted two separate quality improvement processes in sequence. In September 2011, we instituted an umbilical cord milking (UCM) protocol for all births < 30 weeks gestation (GA) and in June 2013, we introduced a protocol to provide pasteurized donor human milk (PDHM) to low birth weight infants of mothers unable to provide their own milk.