The contributions of parental lactation on offspring development: It's not udder nonsense!

Abstract

The Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) hypothesis describes how maternal stress exposures experienced during critical periods of perinatal life are linked to altered developmental trajectories in offspring. Perinatal stress also induces changes in lactogenesis, milk volume, maternal care, and the nutritive and non-nutritive components of milk, affecting short and long-term developmental outcomes in offspring. For instance, selective early life stressors shape the contents of milk, including macro/micronutrients, immune components, microbiota, enzymes, hormones, milk-derived extracellular vesicles, and milk microRNAs. In this review, we highlight the contributions of parental lactation to offspring development by examining changes in the composition of breast milk in response to three well-characterized maternal stressors: nutritive stress, immune stress, and psychological stress. We discuss recent findings in human, animal, and in vitro models, their clinical relevance, study limitations, and potential therapeutic significance to improving human health and infant survival. We also discuss the benefits of enrichment methods and support tools that can be used to improve milk quality and volume as well as related developmental outcomes in offspring. Lastly, we use evidence-based primary literature to convey that even though select maternal stressors may modulate lactation biology (by influencing milk composition) depending on the severity and length of exposure, exclusive and/or prolonged milk feeding may attenuate the negative in utero effects of early life stressors and promote healthy developmental trajectories. Overall, scientific evidence supports lactation to be protective against nutritive and immune stressors, but the benefits of lactation in response to psychological stressors need further investigation.

Keywords: Breastfeeding; COVID-19; Early life stress; Enrichment; Illness; Intervention; Lactation; Maternal milk; Microbiome; Milk-derived extracellular vesicles; Nutrition; Parental care; Psychogenic stress.

Figure 1.

Illustrative depiction of selective stressors and support systems on breast milk composition. Changes occur in the composition of milk through the milk microbiome, milk micro- and macronutrients, milk-derived extracellular vesicles and transcription factors, and milk immune factors and hormones.