This study treats a transversal, descriptive, observational and analytical study with the objective of determining the Vitamin A chemical content in Human Maternal Milk (HMM) of 50 donor mothers from the Ana Braga Maternity Human Milk Bank (HMB), in Manaus, Amazonas. Samples were collected weekly and maintained frozen until pasteurization. Analyses of retinol and β-carotene in human milk were undertaken before and after the treatment (pasteurization), chromatographic method. Aliquots of approximately 5 mL of milk were taken from each sample. The babies included in the study were weight > 2500g. The Vitamin A concentration in the milk, before and after the processing, was found to be insufficient for that required (46.57 ± 6.28 µg/dL and 31.55 ± 8.29 µg/dL respectively) for children who feed exclusively on HMB milk, notably premature babies, whose Vitamin A requirements are greater and whose capacity for ingesting milk is lower than that of fully born babies. The loss of Vitamin A through processing was, in this study, 32.51%. To guarantee hepatic reserves and protect against deficiencies, it would be necessary that the vitamin A concentration in the milk be higher than 80 µg/dL.
Vitamin A; retinol; maternal milk; Human Milk Bank
