Mohammad Jamil Habbal
Sickle cell disease [SCD] is the most common hemoglobinopathy affecting 20 million worldwide. It is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder that is caused by a mutation in the beta-globin chain genes leading to what we know as hemoglobin S.The major clinical features are related to hemolytic anemia and vaso-occlusion, which can lead to acute and chronic pain and tissue ischemia or infarction. Most of SCD treatment is palliative, including the use of penicillin prophylaxis for patients <5 years old, the use of hydroxyurea for increasing the number of fetal hemoglobin, blood transfusions, and pain medications including opioids. At present, allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation is the only curative option, but toxicity, graft rejection, and graft-vs-host disease remain significant, especially for adults.In 1995 Habbal and Omar suggested that human breast milk contains genetic material and can be transmitted to the infants. In 2007, Cregan and his group discovered the presence of stem cells in breast milk. In 2014, Hassiotou and Hartmann explained that stem cells and genes in breastmilk resist digestive juices of the baby, staying alive and moving into the baby’s blood and then integrating into different tissues in the baby. In this paper, we are reporting for the first time the breastfeeding of an infant suffering from SCD by healthy surrogate mother milk for several months. In comparison with her elderly two siblings suffering from SCD, she is having fewer crisis attacks and no blood transfusion, and she is doing well in comparison with her siblings. Therefore, we recommend the use of surrogate mother milk as it is a cheap, healthy, simple, and oral procedure for the treatment of genetic abnormalities in general and SCD in specific.