January 23, 2001 CHICAGO (AP) - A study of more than 16,000 Eastern European mothers offers some of the strongest evidence yet that breast-feeding makes babies healthier.
Babies whose mothers participated in an intensive breast-feeding program in the former Soviet republic of Belaarus had significantly fewer intestinal infections and eczema.
Other studies have linked breast-feeding with similar benefits and a host of other advantages, including fewer earaches, colds and asthma attacks. But most, if not all, of those studies were after-the-fact research: Doctors looked at data on babies whose mothers had or had not breast-fed them.
For this study, published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, hospitals were assigned at random to institute a breast-feeding program.
Researchers have been reluctant to do a randomized breast-feeding study because of concerns about the ethics of withholding a treatment or practice that is widely thought to be beneficial, such as breast-feeding.
Dr. Michael S. Kramer of McGill University in Montreal and colleagues sought to avoid that conflict by essentially comparing women who breast-fed a lot with women who breast-fed but switched to bottle-feeding early on.
Participants gave birth at 31 hospitals or clinics in Belarus. Half of them implemented a breast-feeding program in which doctors and midwives gave instruction and counseling. The other hospitals served as a control group and provided the usual obstetric care.
By 12 months, nearly 20 percent of the infants who were part of the breast-feeding program were still nursing, while 11.4 percent of the control group were.
About 9 percent of the infants who had been in the breast-feeding program had at least one intestinal infection in the first year, compared with about 13 percent of the control group. About 3 percent of the breast-fed infants developed atopic eczema, a scaly, allergy-associated skin irritation, compared with 6 percent of the other babies.
"The real and clear message is that breast-feeding, especially prolonged breast-feeding, affects child health," Dr. Ruth A. Lawrence of the University of Rochester Medical Center said in an accompanying editorial.
The World Health Organization recommends that babies get only breast milk for at least four to six months, and that breast-feeding continue at least until 2 years of age. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breast milk alone until 6 months, and breast-feeding until at least age 12 months.
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
