Copyright St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc., February 4, 1996, by John
Schieszer
Breast-fed babies have for some time been considered less likely than
formula-fed babies to develop asthma and food allergies. Now new research
indicates that this benefit of breast milk may last them throughout their
childhood and adolescence.
The finding comes from Finland, where researchers began a study in 1975 on
the relationship between breast-feeding and the development of allergies. The
team's first report, in the late 1970s, declared that breast-feeding infants for
six or more months could prevent food allergies in children up to 3 years of
age.
After following the same group of individuals to age 17, the team recently
declared that breast-feeding holds longer-term benefits and that the longer a
child is breast-fed, the less likely he or she is to suffer from allergy
problems.
The research, published in the medical journal The Lancet, determined that
infants who were breast-fed for less than one month or not at all were most
likely to develop an allergic disease.
The study found, for example, that 65 percent of the babies who experienced
little or no breast-feeding had developed cases of eczema, asthma, or food
allergies by age 17. By contrast, only 40 percent of those breast-fed for longer
periods as infants faced those medical problems.
"It is probably correct, and there are more benefits that will come to light
as things get studied better," says Dr. Erol Amon, an obstetrician and
gynecologist at St. Mary's Health Center in Richmond Heights.
"In this day and age, with medical costs making front-page news,
breast-feeding is probably one of the least expensive and best-known preventive
medicines that we know of," says Amon, who is also an associate professor at St.
Louis University School of Medicine.
Researchers at the University of Arizona have also documented health benefits
from breast-feeding. For the past 13 years, they have followed more than 1,000
children since birth to determine risk factors for respiratory illnesses,
allergies and asthma.
They found that children breast-fed as babies have lower rates of recurrent
wheezing at age 6. Wheezing is the most common symptom of illnesses in the lower
respiratory tract.
"Many studies have documented the association of breast-feeding with lower
rates of infectious disease early in life. This is one of the first studies to
show that breast-feeding in infancy has a protective effect at age 6, regardless
of the child's early history of illness," says Anne Wright, a research associate
and professor of pediatrics at the University of Arizona College of Medicine.
Earlier studies by this Arizona research team associated breast-feeding with
lower rates of acute respiratory illness and ear infections during infancy.
"Some people think that if you breast-feed for extended periods, a year or
more, you have a dependent child," says Nolene Dugan, a registered nurse at St.
John's Mercy Medical Center in Creve Coeur. "But just the opposite is true. The
child is more independent, has higher self-esteem and confidence."
[article continues...]
Copyright St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc., February 4, 1996, by John
Schieszer
Arly Helm [log in to unmask]
(MS, Nutrition & Food Sciences, CLE, IBCLC; LC for IHC)
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