BACKGROUND Concern has been raised by infant feeding experts that supplementing breastfed infants with iron-fortified formula rather than low-iron formula may have an undesirable impact on their gastrointestinal flora. Thus far, there have been no clinical studies to address this issue directly. We compared the reported frequency of diarrhea for breastfed infants given iron-fortified formula wi...

I n this issue of PLoS Medicine, Renaud Becquet and colleagues report their fi ndings from a new study looking at the long-term safety of infant feeding interventions aimed at reducing mother-to-child HIV transmission in Africa [1]. Over two years, the researchers studied the safety of infant feeding interventions (either formula feeding or shortened breast-feeding) among infants of HIV-infecte...

OBJECTIVE To analyse the effect of community-based counselling on feeding patterns during the first 12 weeks after birth, and to study whether the effect differs by maternal HIV status, educational level or household wealth. DESIGN Cluster-randomized trial with fifteen clusters in each arm to evaluate an integrated package providing two pregnancy and five postnatal home visits delivered by co...

OBJECTIVES To determine whether breast-feeding of infants enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is associated with a reduction in Medicaid expenditures during the first 6 months of life; if so, to determine whether the reduction in Medicaid expenditures represents a positive economic benefit to society when WIC costs for these infants and ...

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in preterm infants develops very rapidly from a mild intolerance to enteral feeding into intestinal mucosal hemorrhage, inflammation, and necrosis. We hypothesized that immediate feeding-induced gut responses precede later clinical NEC symptoms in preterm pigs. Fifty-six preterm pigs were fed total parenteral nutrition (TPN) for 48 h followed by enteral feeding f...

Preterm birth interrupts physiological foetal development, leading to various degrees of immaturity according to the gestational age at which the infant is born [1]. Since 2005, the imprecise definition of “near-term” infants has been replaced with “late-preterm”, which includes infants born between 34 and 36 weeks of gestation [2]. Late-preterm infants are at higher risk than term infants of d...

The aim of this study was to describe baseline infant feeding practices in women of unknown HIV status in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, before the implementation of infant feeding interventions aimed at the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV through breastmilk. We conducted a cross-sectional survey in March 2000 among 225 mothers attending community-run health facilities with their own...