Partner separation and sex contribute to anxiety-like behavior, but partner separation alone amplifies hippocampal inflammation following immune challenge.

Human milk feeding is recommended for the vast majority of newborns as there are many immediate and long-term benefits for both lactating persons and their children. For premature infants, receipt of mother’s own milk is associated with better developmental outcomes, lower rates of retinopathy of prematurity, sepsis, necrotizing enterocolitis, and death. For lactating individuals, not breastfeeding is associated with higher rates of morbidity and mortality, particularly from metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, and breast and ovarian cancers. Improving human milk feeding for premature infants hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is complicated. Premature delivery is unexpected and associated with severe risk of morbidity and mortality in the infant and postpartum individual. After the delivery, postpartum patients are often separated from their premature newborn and instructed to express human milk rather than feeding the newborn at the breast. Critically ill premature infants are frequently transferred to higher level of care NICUs which may be a great distance from the home of the family, complicating visitation and breastfeeding at the bedside. Ongoing expression of human milk for a hospitalized infant can be stressful and time consuming, which can be a barrier to prolonged provision of human milk during the NICU hospitalization. Expression of human milk and receipt of mother’s own milk improves maternal and infant health outcomes, even when pasteurized donor human milk is available. If expression of human milk were easier, enjoyable, and efficient, human milk feeding rates in the NICU might improve. Being near or seeing one’s baby while expressing milk increases oxytocin secretion which can increase milk volumes expressed and improve the efficiency of human milk expression. Video observation platforms have been widely implemented in many hospitals to connect families with their hospitalized child and care team, but there is a paucity of research on how these technologies impact human milk feeding. Use of telemedicine has been described to improve certain health outcomes and access to care, especially for patients in rural areas far from their clinical providers.