Breast Feeding, More is Better

Breast Feeding, More is Better

From Reuters Health news service comes an article dated December 31, 1998 about breast feeding babies. The article starts by confirming what we have known for some time that infants who are fed only breast milk have stronger resistance to infection and therefore are at lowered risk of getting infections. Studies have shown that mother pass immunity-enhanced agent to their babies through breast milk. This results in babies less likely to suffer from respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses than those who are bottle-fed. Researchers found that the breast-fed babies had significantly less diarrhea, vomiting, cough, and wheezing in the first six months of life.

The study also showed that those babies fed a higher portion of breast milk had higher resistance and lower rate of illness. Those babies fed a lower ratio of breast milk were increasingly more vulnerable to the illness mentioned. However, once the ratio of breast milk to other food hit a certain level where the food intake was higher than the breast milk, the results for the children were the same as those who were fed no breast milk at all.

This study points out that the more breast milk fed to the infant the better. But if the amount of breast milk drops below a certain level, the beneficial effects are lost.