Feeding intolerance and growth failure commonly complicate recovery in infants with complicated intestinal atresia, often requiring prolonged human milk fortification after hospital discharge. Our objective was to describe a novel fortification strategy that enabled an exclusive mother's own milk (MOM) diet during postdischarge fortification in a medically complex infant with feeding intolerance.

This case report details the use of freeze-dried mother's own milk (FDMOM) to fortify expressed MOM in a late preterm infant with complicated atresia and congenital shortened bowel to resolve feeding intolerance and weight faltering. Freeze-drying of MOM took place at a commercial facility using SafeDry, a patented contact-free process. FDMOM was used to increase the caloric density of expressed MOM under medical supervision using a targeted fortification approach.

The patient tolerated unfortified MOM but developed severe fussiness, abdominal distention, and increased stooling upon fortification with hypoallergenic formulas. These symptoms resolved within 24 hours of transitioning to FDMOM fortification. Remarkably, the infant went from the 24th percentile for weight-for-age to the 66th percentile within 86 days.

FDMOM fortification may represent a novel, well-tolerated strategy to support growth while maintaining an exclusive MOM diet in infants after complex gastrointestinal surgery and hospital discharge.

The data supporting the findings of this case report are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request, subject to institutional and patient privacy restrictions.

A.W.: Conceptualization, data curation, writing–review and editing. S.M.R.: Conceptualization, methodology, project administration, visualization, writing–original draft, writing–review and editing. B.L.: Conceptualization, funding acquisition, investigation, methodology, project administration, supervision, validation, writing–review and editing. L.S.: Investigation, methodology, writing–review and editing. L.F.: Data curation, investigation, methodology, project administration, validation, writing–review and editing. A.K.: Conceptualization, data curation, investigation, writing–review and editing.

Written informed consent was obtained from the patient's parents.

Received: 13 February 2026

Accepted after revision: 10 March 2026

Accepted Manuscript online:
11 March 2026

Article published online:
24 March 2026

© 2026. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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