Goat milk oligosaccharides: biological significance for the baby's body

Background. Breast milk is the best choice for feeding an infant in the first few years of life. Breast milk allows for the transmission of signals from mother to infant within a tightly coupled mother-breast milk-infant system. Notably, the changes that occur in each component of this triad influence the infant's developmental trajectory. In addition to providing essential nutrients, breast milk contains many biologically active components, macro- and micronutrients that promote healthy growth and development, enable the formation of a healthy microbiota, and stimulate the development of the infant's immune system. However, in today's reality, women do not always manage to keep exclusively breastfeeding. Often there is a question about the right choice of milk formula for mixed or artificial feeding of the baby. Since ancient times, goat's milk has attracted the attention of parents as an alternative food for children. It is known that in Europe of XVIII-XIX centuries goat's milk was used to feed babies left in hospitals for foundlings, and the German writer Kanrad A. Zweirlian published a book called "Goat as the best and most effective nurse", where he told about the fact that a child left without a mother was fed with goat's milk. Today goat's milk is called a super milk food with unique therapeutic, nutritional, immunological and biological properties. It is a source of vitamins, proteins, and antioxidants and can be used to create artificial formula as an alternative to breast milk. From the nutritional point of view, goat's milk differs markedly from the milk of other dairy animals, having a greater buffering capacity. Objective. Currently, there are many studies comparing the possibility of using milk from different animal species (cow, goat, buffalo, donkey, camel, etc.). The article presents the peculiarities of goat milk composition, emphasizing on milk oligosaccharides, which determine part of its unique properties, as well as similarity with breast milk.