VARIATIONS OF NEUTRAL OLIGOSACCHARIDES AND LACTOSE IN HUMAN-MILK DURING THE FEEDING

There exist only few data concerning the variation of oligosaccharides in human milk. In this study the variations of neutral oligosaccharid es and of lactose in human milk during the feeding were determined fro m five women at day 8 and at day 57 post partum. The milk of the inves tigated feedings was divided in four parts of equal volumes during sam pling; the concentrations of neutral oligosaccharide fractions were de termined by gel permeation chromatography on Fractogel TSK HW 40 (S) c olumns. No significant differences in the concentrations of the neutra l oligosaccharide groups monofucosyllactoses, difucosyllactose, lacto- N-tetraoses, monofucosyllacto-N-tetraoses and difucosyllacto-N-tetraos es and of lactose were found in the four milk parts. The results of th is study favor the use of so-called mid-feed samples, a simple and con venient sampling method for analytical studies of human milk. Mid-feed samples are representative of the whole feeding as concerned for neut ral oligosaccharides.