In 1995, while working for a large insurance company which had a corporate
lactation program, I was recruited to participate in a study of mastitis in
lactating women. I participated again in 1997 when my second child was
born. Both times I was told I would be sent a summary of the results when
they became available. This was a longitudinal study using phone
interviews. As I recall, the study lasted about 4 months and I was
interviewed each month. Breastfeeding logs were used to facilitate recall
of data of interest to the researchers. I received the summary of results
in the mail last week. I thought some of you might be interested in these
findings which, according to the authors will soon be published.
I was excited to get the results but disappointed when I read the
conclusions, particularly the suggestion that limiting the number of
feedings may be one way to reduce the risk of mastitis. Here is the letter
I received:
April 25, 2001
Re: Breastfeeding Practices and Lactation Mastitis
Dear Ms. Sara Furr,
Thank you for your participation in our study, and your patience in awaiting
the study results. You are one of the 946 women who participated; 85% of you
completed at least one of the three follow-up telephone interviews. This
resulted in a lot of very informative data, but it took much longer than I
anticipated to complete the analysis. My apologies.
If you thought breastfeeding hurt, you are not alone. Almost everyone
reported breast or nipple pain within the first 3 weeks, although it usually
resolved thereafter. Many of you also very successfully combined
breastfeeding with bottle feeding. Women who reported giving their baby a
bottle in weeks 4 or later were more likely to continue breastfeeding to 12
weeks than women who did not. Clearly, breastfeeding can be successfully
combined with bottle feeding once breastfeeding is established.
One out of every ten of you had one or more bouts of lactation mastitis. If
you had mastitis before, you were four times as likely as a woman without
mastitis history to have mastitis again. Women who reported nipple cracks or
sores or using an anti-fungal cream on their nipples were three times as
likely to have mastitis. Women who breastfed less than 10 times a day had a
lower risk, possibly because this results in less nipple trauma. This
finding suggests nursing mothers may reduce their risk of developing a
mastitis if they limit the number of times they breastfeed to no more than
10 times per day. Duration of feeding made no difference in mastitis risk.
Many of the other behaviors we measured, all that had been suggested in the
medical or lay literature as increasing mastitis risk, had no association
with mastitis in our study. These factors included washing nipples before or
after feeding, and not wearing a nursing bra.
Finally, if you had hair loss after weaning your baby, you were not alone;
one-third of you reported this.
The results of this study will appear in the scientific literature. Thanks
again for participating in this study and helping us all learn more about
mastitis.
Sincerely,
Betsy Foxman, Ph.D Janet Bobo, Ph.D.
Kendra Schwartz, M.D
University of Michigan University of Nebraska Medical Center Wayne
State University
(End of Letter)
Comments anyone?
Sara Dodder Furr, breastfeeding advocate and volunteer
Lincoln, Nebraska
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