Welcome to the Education and Events website of Philips Avent. On this website, you can find educational material, including video presentations of fellow healthcare professionals, trainings and product demonstrations. Furthermore, the website will give you information regarding the annual Philips Avent Scientific Symposium and other events in which Philips Avent participates. Everything on this website is available for you and your colleagues to review and share at any time. As a healthcare professional, you know that every mother and baby deserves the best care possible - before, during, and after a newborn enters the world. At Philips Avent, we share your passion and support your mission. We're committed to delivering solutions throughout the first 1000 days. Because we want to help you support parents in setting the stage for healthy futures.
Lenie van den Engel-Hoek is a speech language therapist working in the Amalia’s Children Hospital of the Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands. In this video she explains the broad perspective of infant feeding physiology and shares the first conclusions of the study that was done in partnership with Philips Avent. In this study, the coordination of sucking, swallowing and breathing in healthy infants was researched, while drinking from the Philips Avent Classic and Natural bottle.
A comprehensive 60-page book for new mothers and moms-to-be. We help answer some of their questions about babies and motherhood. Mothers will learn the essentials – including the physiology of babies, breastfeeding questions, and maintaining milk production.
Mary Fewtrell is Professor of Paediatric Nutrition and Honorary Consultant Paediatrician at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London, UK. Following her training in Medicine and Paediatrics, she has worked in Infant & Child Nutrition research for 23 years. Human milk is the optimum diet for all infants but may have particular benefits for high risk groups such as those born preterm. Since preterm and sick infants are often unable to breast-feed effectively, the provision of maternal breast milk relies on milk expression. Mothers who deliver a preterm infant may need to express milk for prolonged periods, and they require support and advice on how to maximise their milk production. Available evidence suggests that the most successful strategies result from the application of physiological principles derived from an understanding of the processes involved in normal lactation; including the mechanism by which infants obtain milk from the breast as well as hormones and psychological factors. Successful strategies thus focus broadly on (1) hormones (prolactin, oxytocin, cortisol); (2) psychological factors such as counselling and relaxation therapies which may act via these hormones; and (3) physical factors which include how milk is expressed (frequency and style of expression including breast massage) and the design of breast pumps which more closely mimic how an infant breastfeeds, incorporating elements of compression as well as suction. Whilst these strategies have particular significance for mothers of preterm infants who may rely on milk expression for long periods, they can also be applied to mothers who wish to express milk for their term infant.
Dr Nicholas Embleton is Consultant Neonatal Paediatrician, Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Honorary Reader in Neonatal Medicine, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. He qualified in medicine in 1990 and has developed a broad portfolio of translational research (see www.neonatalresearch.net). The idea that nutrition may act during a critical window early in development to permanently affect, or ‘program’ (1), long-term health first emerged from studies in animals (2), but is now strongly supported in humans. Nutrition throughout the life course, including fetal life, infancy, the preschool, or toddlers years, and in adolescence impacts on long-term health, a hypothesis known as the developmental origins of adult disease hypothesis (3), based on the concept of nutritional programming. In humans, the strongest evidence for nutritional programming has been obtained for the longterm benefits of breast-feeding. Breast-feeding, not only has benefits for short-term health, but has been shown to have major advantages for long-term cognitive function (4,5), atopic disease6, bone health (7) and risk of obesity (8,9) and cardiovascular disease (10). There is particularly strong evidence that breast-feeding can improve later cognitive development, a hypothesis supported by several systematic reviews, evidence of a dose-response association (11), data from a cluster randomised trial (12), as well as evidence of benefits of breast-feeding on visual development (13) and structure of the brain (11,14). The mechanisms for these effects are uncertain, but include differences between human milk and formula in concentrations of biologically active factors such as nucleotides (13), lipids, and the milk fat globular membrane, and differences in patterns of growth (15). This presentation will give an overview of the role of human milk intake on long-term health, focusing particularly on benefits for cognitive function and risk of obesity (13,14). It will highlight the key role of promoting exclusive breast-feeding (13), optimising the pattern of infant weight gain (15), and the importance of experimental (randomised) studies in interpreting the effects of early nutrition on later health. Finally, it will consider the implications of nutritional programming for nutritional, clinical and public health practice. References 1. Lucas A. Programming by early nutrition in man. The childhood environment and adult disease. CIBA Foundation symposium 156. Bock GR and Whelan J. Whiley, Chichester; 1991; 38-55. 2. McCay CM: Is longevity compatible with optimum growth? Science 1933; 77: 410–411. 3. Bateson P, et al. Developmental plasticity and human health. Nature 2004; 430: 419-21. 4. Isaacs EB, et al. Early diet and general cognitive outcome at adolescence in children born at or below 30 weeks gestation. J Pediatr 2009; 155: 229-234. 5. Belfort MB, et al. Infant feeding and childhood cognition at ages 3 and 7 years: effects of breastfeeding duration and exclusivity. JAMA Pediatr 2013; 455: 836-888. 6. Kramer MS. Breastfeeding and allergy: the evidence. Ann Nutr Metab 2011; 59 Suppl 1:20-6. 7. Fewtrell MS, et al Early diet and peak bone mass: 20 year follow-up of a randomized trial of early diet in infants born preterm. Bone 2009; 45:142-9. 8. Patro-Gołąb B, et al. Nutritional interventions or exposures in infants and children aged up to 3 years and their effects on subsequent risk of overweight, obesity and body fat: a systematic review of systematic reviews. Obes Rev. 2016 ; 17:1245-1257. 9. Woo Baidal JA, et al. Risk factors for childhood obesity in the first 1,000 days; a systematic review. Am J Prev Med 2016; 50: 761–779. 10. Singhal A. The role of infant nutrition in the global epidemic of non-communicable disease. Proc Nutr Soc 2016; 75: 162–168. 11. Isaacs EB, et al. Impact of breast milk on intelligence quotient, brain size, and white matter development. Pediatr Res 2010;67: 357-62. 12. Kramer MS, et al. PROBIT Study Group (Promotion of Breastfeeding Intervention Trial). Promotion of Breastfeeding Intervention Trial (PROBIT): a randomized trial in the Republic of Belarus. JAMA. 2001;285:413-420. 13. Singhal A, et al. Infant nutrition and stereoacuity at age 4-6 years. Am J Clin Nutr 2007: 85: 152 -159. 14. Sean CL, et al. Breastfeeding and early white matter development: A cross-sectional study. NeuroImage 2013; 82: 77–86. 15. Singhal A, et al. Early origins of cardiovascular disease; is there a unifying hypothesis? Lancet 2004; 363:1642-5.
Nurul Husna is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University Putra Malaysia. She received her PhD in infant nutrition from University College London Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, where her research project focused on mother-infant signalling during breastfeeding. Maternal psychological state is recognized to be influential for lactation success, largely by affecting milk ejection. Thus, increased stress and anxiety can disrupt milk flow and, in the long term, affect milk synthesis. Conversely, milk ejection could possibly be improved by using relaxation therapy during breastfeeding. However, a recent systematic review investigating the effectiveness of relaxation therapy for breast milk composition and volume, and infant behaviour and growth found a limited number of studies. Relaxation therapy was shown to increase milk volume in mothers of pre-term infants in two randomized trials, but neither investigated effects on infant outcomes, and no study has yet been performed in mothers of full-term infants. To address this research gap, a randomised controlled trial was conducted to test the effectiveness of relaxation therapy (guided imagery recording tape) on breastfeeding and infant outcomes in mothers of full-term infants. The study found that the intervention was effective in reducing maternal stress during lactation, favourably affecting breast milk composition (macronutrient and hormonal components) and positively influencing infant behaviour and growth. Given that relaxation tools such as the tape used in this study are generally simple to apply, these results suggest that further research is warranted to investigate potential applications of relaxation therapies for improving breastfeeding outcomes in different settings.
In March 2019, Philips Avent organized the 3rd Scientific Symposium around “Proven and practical approaches to breastfeeding; from hospital to home”. Would you like to have a recap of the Scientific Symposium? Please go and visit our website via the button below, where you can find recordings of the key note speakers and their abstracts, a photo impression and a summary video of the event.
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