Saad Musbah Alasil and Prameela Kannan Kutty
The dawn of maternal vaccination is an important milestone in breastmilk immunity. Breastmilk per se has immunopotential that protects the infant from important childhood diseases both in the immediate neonatal period and in the long term. Its immune nutritive attributes confer this exclusive early nourishment a cutting edge in defence that no other human nutrient can yet offer. Evidence that breastmilk is important in maturing the naiveté immune system and its potential to differentiate commensal and pathogenic microbes as well as its antimicrobial action are briefly reviewed. The vulnerability of the neonatal period to diseases and the increasing incidence of antibiotic resistance to pathogens must prompt us to continue to seek avenues through which primary disease preventive strategies can be emphasized and indeed improved. The advent of maternal vaccination has made it necessary that review and much research are both needed for elucidating the enrichment of the immune potential in breastmilk and how, because of it, some focused protective immunological responses may be triggered by further empowering the immunological potential of breastmilk constituents. Primary disease prevention is achieved both by breastfeeding and by vaccination. We review here how the usefulness of breastfeeding and maternal vaccination may further empower breastmilk immunology.