I can't find any references to this article on Lactnet, but it is making me tear my hair out at the moment because it is being cited in the mass media, including a newspaper called 'Today's Medicine' which is the main source of professional news for a shocking nuimber of clinicians here, as though it contains conclusive proof that exclusive breastfeeding for six months is responsible for the development of both food and airway allergies in childhood.  This claim is made despite the microscopic numbers of children who are exclusively breastfed in accordance with our nearly ten year old guidelines. 
It was published on line in Pediatrics in December 2009, and in the paper edition in January 2010, and is a spin-off from the Finnish diabetes study which I believe had been discussed here some years ago.  The entire article is freely available, at http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/125/1/50
"Age at the Introduction of Solid Foods During the First Year and Allergic Sensitization at Age 5 Years", first author is Bright I. Nwaru, working in Tampere.

The data in the study were collected from nearly one thousand children with a known genetic predisposition for diabetes I.  Exclusive breastfeeding is not defined in the article.  The median duration of whatever it is they call exclusive breastfeeding was less than two months, 1.8 to be precise, and nearly one third of the study children were not breastfed at all for longer than 5 months.  The range of duration of exclusive breastfeeding was 0-10 months, but since half of the children were being fed something else along with or instead of breastmilk before the age of two months there can't have been many who were breastfed for the longest times they recorded.   'Late' introduction of various solids was associated with the development of food allergies in the children, and 'late' was defined individually for each food, with potatoes being the expected first weaning food and > 4 months considered 'late'.  Meat was 'late' at 5.5 months, fish at 8.2 and eggs later than that.  Unlike exclusive breastfeeding, late introduction of solids was clearly defined for the purposes of this study.  Median age at introduction of solids was 3.5 months, meaning half of the children had tasted solids by that age.

I will not claim to have read this with anything resembling impartiality, but I can not fathom how it has become a landmark study showing the danger of exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months.   First, it is based on a highly selected group of children, and second, very few of them were exclusively breastfed for any length of time at all.  The lack of clearly stated operational definitions of the variables in question is a serious weakness, in my view, and other researchers would be hard put to attempt to replicate the study based on the article itself, as it is hazy on a lot of the details I would have wanted to read.  

If I haven't found the right key words to find whatever discussion it may have generated on LN when it first came out, please tell me as I would be interested to read the thread.  But I don't recall it turning up here at all.  Naturally, 'Today's Medicine' ran a big spread on it as their way of marking World Breastfeeding Week this year (almost - it was in August, but I wonder what it was that suddenly piqued their interest in it then).

Rachel Myr, trying to stay calm and focused in Kristiansand, Norway

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