The health benefits of breastfeeding an infant until age two and beyond are becoming more widely known thanks to research. Yet despite decades of investment, breastfeeding rates worldwide are still frustratingly low. Millions of women and families, in Australia and across the globe, don’t have the information and support they need to provide breastmilk to their children.
Scientists at The University of Western Australia are intent on changing this. UWA is home to three research hubs dedicated to improving child health through human milk and breastfeeding: the LactaResearch Group, the Geddes Hartmann Human Lactation Research Group and the Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation Centre for Immunology and Breastfeeding (LRF CIBF). Director and Chair of the LRF CIBF at UWA, Professor Valerie Verhasselt, is a world leader in the field of neonatal immunology, and has pioneered research in health promotion through breastfeeding.
The Family Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation (FLRF) supports multiple human milk research groups internationally, and established the world’s first chair in Human Lactology through an endowed chair in 2015.
Since then, this endowed chair has expanded into the LRF CIBF. Katharina Lichtner, Managing Director of FLRF, recently visited UWA and Professor Verhasselt at the Centre.
“The contributions that Valerie and her team at LRF CIBF are making to immunology and disease prevention through breastmilk are critical components of the Global Human Milk Research Consortium and its aim to advance the understanding of breastfeeding and breastmilk through interdisciplinary, collaborative research. The knowledge that they are generating has very practical implications for saving infant lives and improving child health, especially in low-resource settings. Together, the LRF centres are helping to bring us closer to a world where every child has an optimum start in life through the benefits of breastmilk.” Dr Lichtner said.
The LRF CIBF at UWA is one of five independent human milk research centres endowed by FLRF which form the Global Human Milk Research Consortium. This multi-disciplinary research network aims to promote excellence in research and provide valuable, innovative science about all aspects of breastmilk and breastfeeding for supporting child health across the globe.
Based at the The Kids Research Institute Australia, the Centre’s lab-based expertise has enabled expansion into clinical studies involving local birth cohorts, as well as international cohorts. Through collaboration with the ORIGINS project, the LRF CIBF aims to provide best recommendations for allergy prevention through breastfeeding.
Recent research with Professor Thomas Egwang in Uganda is building new avenues for preventing Malaria and intestinal worm infection through breastfeeding. These studies are of paramount importance as worldwide one in four suffer from worm infection which severely impairs child development, and children under five account for about 80% of all malaria deaths.
Further philanthropic support received from Telethon last year enabled Professor Verhasselt to investigate newborns’ feeding practices in WA hospitals, with preliminary data showing that half of newborns in Western Australia received formula during their hospital stay.
Based on the team’s preclinical evidence, Professor Verhasselt expects this practice will have a wide impact on healthy development, as supplementing newborns with formula milk also deprives them from unique bioactive factors from colostrum.
To further promote knowledge on the value of human milk, she co-coordinates and lectures with Dr Melinda Boss and Prof Donna Geddes for the course at UWA, “Breastfeeding – a Foundation for Human Health”.