Effects of maternal medication use on NGF and IL-6 levels in human breast milk.

Background: The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of maternal medications on nerve growth factor (NGF) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels in human breast milk (HBM).Methods: A total of 30 samples of HBM were collected after consent from consecutively born term newborns. NGF and IL-6 concentrations were analyzed using ELISA assays from R&D Systems. The HBM samples were centrifuged, and the clear portion of the HBM after discarding the fat was analyzed and cytokine data were expressed as NGFC or IL-6C. Ten samples of HBM, which were not centrifuged, were also used in ELISA assays and cytokine data were expressed as NGFF or IL-6F.Results: After exposure to NSAIDs (76369610, mean +/- SD, pg/mL), the NGFC levels in HBM were significantly higher as compared to those who were exposed to narcotics (522 +/- 1000) (p=0.008). NGFC and IL-6C levels positively correlated with each other in HBM (R=0.194 p<0.0001). NGFC levels (360 +/- 237) were significantly lower than NGFF levels (888 +/- 751) (p<0.0001). IL-6F was higher than IL-6C levels without statistical significance.Conclusion: Further studies are warranted to elucidate effect of maternal medications on cytokine changes in HBM and effect of these cytokine changes on newborn gastrointestinal milieu.