Research Thursday: Efficacy and Safety of Breast Milk Eye Drops in Infants with Eye Discharge
April 6, 2023
Here is the citation.
Sugimura T, Seo T, Terasaki N, et al. Efficacy and safety of breast milk eye drops in infants with eye discharge. Acta Paediatr. 2021 Apr;110(4):1322-1329. doi: 10.111/apa.15628
Here is the PubMed link. This is not an open access article.
Here are some thoughts.
This is a randomized study which is great.
I admit to being biased on this topic. It seems to me that drops of human milk, if available, would work better than any drops or ointments containing antibiotics because so many cases of conjunctivitis in young children are associated with viral infections. Breast milk contains anti-viral components. I just don’t get what the eye ointment with antibiotics is doing other than maybe soothing the eye (if you can get it in there). Plus, the viral infection will clear on its own with time.
The problem is so many day care centers won’t let the child back at school without a doctor’s note confirming a prescription was given. Of course, if the infection is due to a bacteria, that’s a different story. And, not everyone has breast milk to use. Anyway, in this RCT study, eye drops of breast milk and eye drops containing sulfa worked the same.