Epidemiological profile of donors and recipients of human milk in a reference milk bank

OBJECTIVE. To describe the epidemiological profile of donors and recipients of a Human Milk Bank at a referral hospital in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul. METHODS.  This is a descriptive cross-sectional study with retrospective data from the Milk Banks Network system and secondary data from medical records of a tertiary public hospital, between January and December 2017. Descriptive statistics was performed using the Statistic Package for Social Sciences (SPSS®), version 25.0. RESULTS. In 2017, 383 human milk donors were registered, totaling a volume of approximately 614 liters of donated milk. Of this total, 88.51% donors lived in the city of Campo Grande, state capital; 56.40% reported no paid activity; the mean age was 27.45 years; and 79.63% had prenatal care in the public network. Of the 149 recipients, 71.1% (n = 106) were premature with a median gestational age of 34.00 weeks (minimum 21.00 and maximum 42.00); and birth weight with a median of 2225.00 (minimum 660.00 and maximum 5230.00). Also, 61.1% (n = 91) of the recipients weighed less than 2,500 grams and were distributed in: extremely low weight 0.7% (n = 1); very low weight 11.4% (n = 17); low weight 49.0% (n = 73); and normal weight 38.9% (n = 58). CONCLUSION: The donors are young women who had support from the Unified Health System for the prenatal assistance. Among human milk recipients, 61.1% are premature babies weighing less than 2,500 grams.