Lactation as a Biological System: The Dynamics of Human Milk Composition

Medela’s Breastfeeding & Lactation Symposium 2023 featured a world-class agenda for healthcare professionals keen to learn about the latest scientific evidence in the field of human milk and lactation towards improving the quality of lactation care and infant feeding.

The agenda included the following lectures:

• Lactation as a biological system: The dynamics of human milk composition (Prof. Lars Bode, USA)
• Lactation as a biological system: The importance of dose (Prof. Donna Geddes, Australia)
• A call to action: Improving human milk & breastfeeding outcomes by prioritizing effective initiation of lactation (Prof. Diane Spatz, USA)
• Initiation of lactation: Prophylactic lactation support as Standard of Care for mothers of NICU infants (Dr Rebecca Hoban, Canada)
• Improving survival & outcomes for preterm infants through optimizing early maternal breast milk: A national quality improvement toolkit from BAPM (Dr Sarah Bates)
• Prioritizing own mother‘s milk in the neonatal unit: Need for standardized metrics that capture lactation and infant feeding (Prof. Neena Modi)

This webinar features the lecture of Prof. Lars Bode: Lactation as a biological system: The dynamics of human milk composition. 

Dr. Lars Bode is Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology and Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics,and the Director of the LRF MOMI CORE at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. His laboratory focuses on human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), a group of complex sugar molecules that represent the third most abundant component of human milk after lactose and lipids. The goal of Dr. Bode’s research is to understand how HMOs are synthesized in the human mammary gland and how they benefit the breast-fed infant and potentially also the breastfeeding mother.

This course is CPD (Continuing Professional Development) certified.