Oral galactagogues (natural therapies or drugs) for increasing breast milk production in mothers of non-hospitalised term infants
Foong SC, Tan ML, Foong WC, Marasco LA
Published in Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
Methodology
Cochrane systematic review and meta-analysis of 41 randomised and quasi-randomised controlled trials comparing oral galactagogues (pharmacological and natural) with placebo, no treatment, or another galactagogue in mothers breastfeeding healthy term infants.
Key Findings
Overall certainty of evidence was low to very low due to risk of bias, heterogeneity and imprecision. Pharmacological galactagogues may increase milk volume (low certainty); subgroup analyses suggest natural galactagogues may benefit infant weight and milk volume, but magnitude is very uncertain.
Conclusions
Due to extremely limited, very low certainty evidence the effect of galactagogues on continued breastfeeding at 3, 4 and 6 months is unknown; no galactagogue can be shown superior to another.
Limitations
High risk of bias from lack of blinding, substantial clinical and statistical heterogeneity, imprecise milk-volume measurement, incomplete adverse-event reporting.
Supplements Studied
Natural galactagogues are usually botanical or other food agents.
Natural galactagogues are usually botanical or other food agents.
We are also uncertain if one galactagogue performs better than another.
There is some evidence from subgroup analyses that natural galactagogues may benefit infant weight and milk volume in mothers with healthy, term infants, but due to substantial heterogeneity of the studies, imprecision of measurements and incomplete reporting, we are very uncertain about the magnitude of the effect.
Outcomes Measured
There is low-certainty evidence that pharmacological galactagogues may increase milk volume. There is some evidence from subgroup analyses that natural galactagogues may benefit infant weight and milk volume in mothers with healthy, term infants, but due to substantial heterogeneity of the studies, imprecision of measurements and incomplete reporting, we are very uncertain about the magnitude of the effect.
Study Details
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Disclosures
Funding
Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth review; non-commercial support
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