The article is titled "Breast-feeding and infant illness: A dose-response
relationship?" in Am J Public Health 1999; 89: 25-30.
It is not actually a "new study"- it is an analysis of data from the 1988
National Maternal and Infant Health Survey. It relied on maternal recall on
a mailed questionnaire for details of infant feeding and illnesses.
Exclusively breastfed infants had an odds ratio of 0.54 (95% confidence
interval 0.43, 0.66) of diarrhoea - that is only half the rate of
diarrhoea - adjusted for maternal age, income, smoking, etc. This is pretty
impressive.
However, infants who had equal breast and formula feeding or mainly formula
feeds were not less likely to develop diarrhoea, etc.
This doesn't mean there was NO benefit to these babies. We can still say
even a little breastfeeding is worthwhile - but it does say we should really
be pushing for exclusive breastfeeding. (The rates of exclusive bf were
really low in this survey).
Lisa Amir
MBBS, MMed, IBCLC in Melbourne, Australia

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