Breast-milk fat concentrations of rural African women. 1. Short-term variations within individuals

1. Detailed studies of variations in breast-milk fat concentrations were performed over 12 or 24 h periods on sixty rural Gambian women feeding on demand. The creamatocrit method (Lucas et al. 1978) was used. 2. The complex pattern of within-feed and between-feed changes in fat concentration was largely explained by differences in volume per feed and time interval between feeds. 3. No consistent difference in fat production between the breasts of each individual was found despite the local custom of starting all feeds on the right breast. 4. A marked diurnal variation in the mean fat concentration per feed was noted. On average the highest values occurred in the early morning, the lowest values in the late afternoon. 5. There was significantly greater between-individual than within-individual variation in the mean fat concentration per feed over 12 h (P less than 0.001). 6. A simple, rational and non-intrusive sampling procedure was devised for the estimation of whole-day mean fat levels based on the finding that the mean fat concentration of small samples of milk (0.25 ml) taken from both breasts before and after one specific feed of the day was closely correlated with 12 h and 24 h mean fat concentrations.