2014 Volume 67 Issue 1 Pages 27-31
In this longitudinal study, we examined temporal changes in total folate concentration in human breast milk. Breast milk samples were obtained from 25 healthy Japanese women every week up to the eighth week from the first week postpartum. We measured the total folate content of the milk samples by bioassay. Because a diet survey had not been conducted on these subjects, their total folate intake was unknown. The concentration of total folate in the 200 milk samples was 54.2±31.9 μg/L (mean±SD) or 46.6 (median) (range 4.9-161.9) μg/L. The concentration increased between the first and fifth weeks. The total folate concentration in each sample from the third to eighth weeks was significantly higher than in the first week (p＜0.05) . We also divided the subjects into two groups according to the median folate concentration in the first week. This revealed that the group with the higher folate concentration in the first week continued to have a significantly higher concentration than the other group throughout the entire study period (p＜0.05) .
