The resources on this page provide healthcare professionals with evidence-based guidance and peer-reviewed literature supporting the importance of human milk, the safety of pasteurization, and best practices for the storage and handling of pasteurized donor human milk in clinical settings.
Chantry, CJ et al 2015. ABM Position on Breastfeeding. Breastfeeding Medicine 10:9 (407-411)
This position statement argues that breastfeeding is critical to maternal, child, and societal health and therefore require far greater emphasis in medical education, clinical practice, research, and health policy. It affirms breastfeeding as the normative standard for infant feeding and frames physician support for breastfeeding as an ethical, evidence-based, and human rights responsibility. The paper calls on physicians, health systems, governments, and international organizations to collaborate in promoting, and supporting optimal breastfeeding through coordinated care, education, research funding, and supportive policies.
ABM Statement on Importance of Human Milk to Reduce the Risk of NEC in Premature Infants
This ABM statement emphasizes that mother’s own milk is the optimal nutrition for premature infants and significantly reduces the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis, with pasteurized donor human milk recommended when mother’s milk is unavailable. It calls for strong clinical and public policy support for lactation in the NICU, expanded access to donor milk, and ethical feeding decisions centered on shared decision-making.
Colaizy, TT, et al. Neurodevelopmental outcomes of extremely preterm infants fed donor milk or preterm infant formula. JAMA. 2024. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2814657
This randomized study examined whether donated human milk or formula was better for extremely preterm infants when maternal milk was limited. The researchers found that donor human milk significantly reduced the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis compared with formula, while neurodevelopmental outcomes and mortality were similar between groups, although formula-fed infants grew slightly faster.
AAP COMMITTEE ON NUTRITION, AAP SECTION ON BREASTFEEDING, AAP COMMITTEE ON FETUS AND NEWBORN. 2017. Donor Human Milk for the High-Risk Infant: Preparation, Safety, and Usage Options in the United States. Pediatrics. 139(1):e20163440
This policy statement emphasizes that pasteurized donor human milk is a safe and beneficial option for high-risk infants—especially those considered to have a very low birth weight—when a mother’s own milk is unavailable, with strong evidence supporting its role in reducing necrotizing enterocolitis. It supports the use of regulated milk banks with proper donor screening and pasteurization, discourages informal or unpasteurized milk sharing due to safety risks, and calls for public policies to improve the availability, affordability, and equitable access to donor human milk.
Page 89 of Best Practice for Expressing, Storing and Handling Human Milk in Hospitals, Homes, and Childcare Settings describes the Human Milk Storage recommendations for High Risk Infants. New as of 2025 studies conducted in hospital settings with aseptic techniques suggest thawed PDHM can be safely maintained in the refrigerator at or below 40 degrees F (4.4 degrees C) for up to 96 hours, for more details consider obtaining the HMBANA Best Practice Book at the link above or check out the following studies.
Pasteurized Donor Human Milk Maintains Microbiological Purity for 4 Days at 4°C – PubMed
Steele C (2018) Best Practices for Handling and Administration of Expressed Human Milk and Donor Human Milk for Hospitalized Preterm Infants. Frontiers in Nutrition. 5:76. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2018.00076
This mini-review summarizes best practices for the safe handling, preparation, storage, fortification, and administration of expressed and donor human milk for preterm infants in hospital settings. It emphasizes that because human milk for preterm infants functions as a medical therapy, strict aseptic technique, trained staff, dedicated preparation spaces, standardized workflows, and technologies such as bar-code scanning are essential to prevent contamination, misadministration, and fortification errors while ensuring optimal nutrition and patient safety.
Last Updated 12/16/2025