I think this is a good point Jennifer.  We also need to remember that many women who have allergy/asthma in the family are highly motivated to breastfeed because they have heard that it is protective.  Therefore, we need to check any study design to see if they have matched allergy/asthma history pairs of breastfeeding and formula feeding moms.  If not, the breastfeeding group as a whole may be more "prone" to have problems and the research have little value.

Its terrifically hard to design a good study with human subjects for "long-term" problems ... so many potentially confounding variables.

Sherene mailto:[log in to unmask]
using my statistics background today

"Jennifer Tow, IBCLC" wrote:

> If Odent is correct (I believe that he is), then breastfeeding may or may not be irrelevent, depending on the birth. I am certain that no study done on breastfeeding and asthma has considered this factor. I would conjecture that we might well see increased risk of asthma in AF babies whose births initiate normally, while in those whose births are medically induced, might see no increased risk, since the birth may have been a more formidable risk factor. I would also guess that as inductions and "elective cesareans" are on the rise, we might well see more and more research that suggests breastfeeding is not relevent.
> Jennifer Tow, IBCLC, CT, USA

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