Exclusive breastfeeding is recommended from birth until the first six months and then with complementary feeding up to age two. In our country, only 41.6% of infants are exclusively breastfed during the first six months, and the average duration of breastfeeding is 16 months.The term 'relactation' is used for the resumption of breastfeeding in infants who were not breastfed before or who quit s...

BACKGROUND The mechanism(s) responsible for the reduced risk of allergic disease in breastfed infants are not fully understood. Using an established murine model of asthma, we demonstrated previously that resistance to allergic airway disease transmitted from allergic mothers to breastfed offspring requires maternal B cell-derived factors. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate th...

IMPORTANCE Breastfeeding may benefit child cognitive development, but few studies have quantified breastfeeding duration or exclusivity, nor has any study to date examined the role of maternal diet during lactation on child cognition. OBJECTIVES To examine relationships of breastfeeding duration and exclusivity with child cognition at ages 3 and 7 years and to evaluate the extent to which mat...

Breast milk provides adequate nutrients during the first 6 months of life. However, there are some reports of zinc deficiency in breastfed infants. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of zinc deficiency in infants aged 4-6 months and the associated factors. Healthy infants aged 4-6 months and their mothers were enrolled. They were classified by feeding types as breastfed (BF), ...

BACKGROUND To prevent breastfeeding problems, cup-feeding has been recommended as a method of providing medically necessary supplemental feedings to breastfed infants. OBJECTIVES To compare amounts ingested, administration time, and infant physiologic stability during cup-, bottle-, and breastfeeding. DESIGN/METHODS A total of 98 term, healthy newborns were randomized to either cup-feeding ...

There is now strong evidence that breastfed babies are less prone to stomach upsets, ear infections and the coughs and colds of early childhood than their bottle fed peers. There is also a growing body of evidence that breastfeeding may confer more long term benefits for child development. For example, studies have consistently shown that breastfed children score more highly on cognitive and ac...

OBJECTIVES To examine factors that impact on breastfeeding duration among Western Australian Aboriginal children. We hypothesised that Aboriginal children living in remote locations in Western Australia were breastfed for longer than those living in metropolitan locations. METHODS A population-based cross-sectional survey was conducted from 2000 to 2002 in urban, rural and remote settings acr...

OBJECTIVE Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a spectrum of liver disease characterised by accumulation of large-droplet fat in hepatocytes with possible progression to inflammation and fibrosis. Breastfeeding has benefits for child health, both during infancy and later in life, reducing the risk of manifestations of the metabolic syndrome. Here we investigated the association between ...

OBJECTIVE A substantial body of literature has established the positive effect of breastfeeding on child developmental outcomes. There is increasing consensus that breastfed children have higher IQs after accounting for key variables, including maternal education, IQ, and socioeconomic status. Cross-sectional investigations of the effects of breastfeeding on structural brain development suggest...

Objective: To determine the incidence of fever after vaccination with the first dose of d iphther ia -per tuss is te tanus (DPT) among exclusively breastfed and non-exclusively breastfed infants in Ibadan, Nigeria. Methods: A prospective study was conducted on a cohort of 710 infants who received first dose of DPT vaccine at the Immunisation Clinic of a tertiary health institution in Ibadan, be...