الفهرس 
BREAST FEEDINGOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Breast milk has non nutritional protective effects on recipient infants. It has been speculated that bioactive substances present in human milk have important roles in protecting infants. The protective effect of breast feeding is attributable to a complex of acquired and innate factors unique to human milk that have anti-infective, anti-inflammatory, and immunoregulatory functions, including secretory antibodies, oligosaccharides, glycoconjugates, lactoferrin, leukocytes and immunomodulating agents as cytokines.
Transforming growth factor-1 is the prototypic member of a large family of structurally related pleiotropic secreted cytokines that play a pivotal role in the control of differentiation, proliferation and state of activation of many different cell types including immune cells.
The effects of TGF-1 are dependant on the cell type and its differentiation state as well as on the combination of cytokines that are present in the medium. TGF-1 affects B and T cells at all stages of development and also plays a role in T-helper subset differentiation.
Granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) is a member of a cytokine family, having a four -helical bundle regulates the proliferation and differentiation of neutrophilic progenitor cells. It is likely to play a role in the basal regulation of neutrophil production as well as to neutrophil response to inflammatory stimuli. Further, G-CSF exhibits other biologic activities besides proliferative effects: specifically, G-CSF appears to modulate certain neutrophil functions as well as the distribution of neutrophils and progenitor cells within the body.
This study was thus designed to evaluate the levels of TGF-1 and G-CSF in colostrum of mothers lactating premature newborns and compare these levels to those obtained from mothers lactating full term newborns.
In this work, the 40 studied apparently healthy mothers and their newborns were divided into two groups. Group I included 20 mothers of preterm newborns and group II included 20 mothers of full term newborns. They were 10 males and 10 females in both groups. Their mean gestational ages were 34.05±1.39 in group I and 39.3±0.98 weeks in group II. While, their mean birth weight were 1.8±0.37 kgs in group I and 3.32±0.5 kg in group II.
All mothers and their newborn were subjected to the following:
• Full history taking, thorough clinical examination and anthropometric examination.
• Assessment of neonatal gestational age using the newborn Ballard score and Apgar score at 1 and 5 minutes.
• Laboratory investigations including estimation of of TGF-1 and G-CSF in colostrum samples using ELISA technique.
The results of our study revealed that gestational age and Ballard score were significantly lower in preterm newborns as compared to full term newborns. On the other hand there was no statistical significant difference of the maternal age between the two groups.
Concerning the sex distribution order of birth and SES status there were no statistical significant difference between the two groups.
As regards, Apgar score at 1 minute, it was significantly lower in preterm newborns as compared to full term ones. However at 5 minutes it was lower in preterm newborns, yet statistically insignificant.
All studied anthropometric measurements were significantly lower in preterm newborns as compared to full term newborns.
The results of our study revealed that TGF-1 levels in colostrum were significantly higher in preterm as compared to full term newborns. On the other hand the G-CSF levels in colostrum were significantly lower in preterm as compared to full term newborns. Moreover, there were no significant correlation between TGF-1 and G-CSF and clinical & anthropometric measurements among preterm and full term newborns