COMPARISON OF PROTEIN CONTENT AND ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY IN BREAST MILK BASED ON PATHOMCHINDA SCRIPTURE

Abstract

High quality of breast milk promotes the immune system and healthy growth of newborn infants. This study aims to proof the quality of milk. The first objective is to compare the protein content and the antioxidant activity of breast milk between good and bad character of mother in Pathomchinda scripture. Second objective is to evaluate the relationship between obstetrical factors, namely maternal age, gestational age, birth weight, underline disease, maternal complication, delivery method and lactogenesis phase, and the protein content and antioxidant activity of breast milk. The subject consisted of 30 breastfeeding mothers for 4 days – 6 months located in Songkhla province. The study adopted purposive sampling technique. The selection of subject was done by snowball sampling technique. According to Pathomchinda scripture, the subjects were divided into 2 groups: good character and bad character, by using the personal characteristics assessment between January and April 2020. The researchers collected 15 ml of milk samples using freeze-drying technique before determine protein content and antioxidant activity by Bradford and DPPH methods, respectively. Characters of population were described by descriptive statistic. Data were analyzed by Mann-Whitney test and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients. The results showed that the protein content from good character mother (mean ± S.D. = 1.04 ± 0.23 mmol/L) and the protein content from bad character mother (mean ± S.D. = 0.91 ± 0.22 mmol/L) was not significant with p > 0.05. However, the antioxidant activity from good character mother (mean = 56.75, S.D. = 1.67) provided significance higher percent inhibition of free radicals than the milk from bad character mother (mean = 47.35, S.D. = 3.24) with p < 0.05. Therefore, the quality of milk from good character group is better than another group related to the Pathomchinda scripture. In addition, lactogenesis phase was found to be the only factor associated with protein content and antioxidant activity in breast milk. Maternal age and pregnancy complications factors were associated with antioxidant activity. However, the composition of human breast milk is a complex combination of lipids, carbohydrates, and minerals, which are essential for infant nutrition. Human breast milk also contains lots of distinct bioactive molecules that indicate the quality of milk. Hence, the relationship between the individual maternal characteristics and other nutrients in breast milk should be further studied.