Breastfeeding does not Protect Children against Obesity

Extended breast-feeding cannot reduce the risks of an infant gaining unnecessary weight later, new research released Monday shows.

Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend new moms to exclusively breast-feed healthy babies until the sixth month, as formula milk is not as effective as breast milk in preventing many illnesses among babies.

Babies who do not receive breast milk are at higher risks of developing diseases, including lower respiratory tract infections, diabetes and childhood leukemia. Mothers who do not breast-feed have higher chances of having breast cancer, ovarian cancer, diabetes and post-partum depression.

Apart from that, many previous studies have shown babies who received mother's milk at a lower risk of becoming obese in childhood.

However, a new study reported in the March 13 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found lengthy or exclusive breast-feeding of little help in avoiding the risk of children becoming obese at 11 years of age.

Richard Martin and colleagues from the University of Bristol looked at more than 17,000 mothers and their babies in Belarus. Nearly half of the mothers who participated in the study were part of a breast-feeding promotion intervention. Researchers followed about 14,000 children until they turned 11.

Even though all the mothers were breast-feeding their babies after birth, mothers in the breast-feeding promotion intervention group reported an increased duration of breast-feeding compared to the other group.

Researchers found that exclusive and lengthy breast-feeding protects children against many diseases, particularly stomach infections and eczema. However, irrespective of the duration or exclusive status of breast-feeding, a significant number of the kids in the study were either overweight (between 14 and 16 percent) or obese (5 percent), Reuters Health reported.

"Breastfeeding has many advantages but population strategies to increase the duration and exclusivity of breastfeeding are unlikely to curb the obesity epidemic," the authors wrote.

Since artificial infant feeds cannot compete with the benefits provided by breast milk, the authors recommend mothers to breast-feed their babies.

"Although breastfeeding is unlikely to stem the current obesity epidemic, its other advantages are amply sufficient to justify continued public health efforts to promote, protect, and support it," lead author of the study, Richard Martin, said in a news release.