Healthier Children and Adults

The Breastfeeding Book: Everything You Need to Know About Nursing Your Child
by Martha Sears, R. N., William Sears, M. D.

(Page 6 of 9)

Derrick and Patrice Jelliffe, pioneers in breastfeeding research, stated that breastfed infants are “biochemically different.” This difference in body chemistry may be the reason they are healthier. There is evidence that breastfeeding protects babies against a great variety of illnesses, and in some cases this protection extends even beyond the time babies are nursing. While babies are breastfeeding, they have fewer and less serious respiratory infections, less diarrhea, and less vomiting. When breastfed babies do become ill, they are less likely to become dehydrated and less likely to need hospitalization. They enjoy protection from rotavirus (a type of respiratory infection), meningitis, infant botulism, and urinary tract infections. In developing countries, where there may not be safe water or good medical care, the protection that breastfeeding offers against cholera, various kinds of parasites, and other serious infections helps babies born in poverty to stay healthy. Researchers have also found that as children grow, having been breastfed as an infant is associated with a reduced risk of juvenile diabetes, childhood cancers, and digestive disorders, including ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.

Many parents are relieved to learn that breastfed babies are less likely to become victims of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). There are many ways in which breastfeeding could influence the incidence of SIDS. One recent theory suggests that infants who die of SIDS may sleep too deeply and fail to awaken if they stop breathing for a moment or two, as babies often do when they're sleeping. Breastfed babies sleep less deeply and thus may be more likely to wake up if there is a problem with their breathing. Breastfeeding's protection against infection may also help to lower the SIDS risk.

Breast milk's influence on health probably reaches even farther than researchers have dared to imagine, but studies of factors that affect the development of disease in adults seldom ask their research subjects about how they were fed as infants (and many adults would have trouble giving a reliable answer to the question). But new studies of what is in breast milk suggest that this living biological fluid carries substances that are critical to the optimal development of many systems in the body. This early development may very well affect the progress of many diseases throughout life. Will breastfeeding protect your baby against a heart attack, a stroke, or cancer later in life? We believe it might, though this can't be known for certain. In the meantime, the evidence is overwhelming that babies get a head start when they begin life at their mother's breasts and that the benefits of breastfeeding increase the longer they stay there. There are hundreds of substances in breast milk that aren't in formula, and we don't yet understand how these many elements work together for babies' optimal development. Human milk is a complex and constantly changing dynamic substance, one that can never be completely duplicated in a laboratory.

© 2000 by Martha Sears, R.N., and William Sears, M.D.

About the Author

Martha Sears is a registered nurse, childbirth educator, and breastfeeding consultant.

William Sears, M.D., received his pediatric training at Harvard Medical School's Children's Hospital and Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. He has practiced as a pediatrician for more than thirty years.