As Captain of Team Breastfeeding, I’m calling
on our officers to revise the propaganda: breastfeeding does not protect
against asthma or allergies!
A study to be published in the British Journal of Medicine
followed 13,889 Belarussian children from birth until 6 ½ years old, with
randomized samples and control groups and everything. Researchers found that
the group of mothers who received extra education on extended and exclusive
breastfeeding – and presumably followed through -- had babies who were no
better protected against asthma, hayfever or eczema than the group that
continued with “traditional practices.” The Science Daily article doesn’t
explain “traditional practices,” but I assume it means feeding babies formula
or breastfeeding for only a short time.
Before you get all over Belarussia as the place for the
study, apparently it has one of the lowest asthma and allergy rates in the
world, which allowed scientists to rule out environmental factors that might
have contributed to these annoying and/or life-threatening conditions. Nursing moms, I feel we have no
choice but to concede this point in the Battle of Breast vs. Bottle.
But all is not lost, devoted lactaters. One researcher
said that the breastfed babies in the study suffered fewer gastrointestinal
infections and atopic eczema for the first year of life. Put that in your
Comfort Proteins and drink it!
