Summaries of Significant New Research
The Latest Research section includes summaries written by the Breastfeeding Information and Research team of recent significant research. The summaries will help you get a clear snapshot of the study’s results and conclusions.
Authors:
Alison Stacey MBBS FRACGP IBCLC, Liz McGuire BSc IBCLC, Bernadette Gifford BAppSci(ClinSci) BOsteoSci
Vitamin B12 deficiency as a cause of severe neurological symptoms in breast fed infant – a case report.
Infants are particularly vulnerable to vitamin B12 deficiency because of their rapid growth, and exclusively breastfed infants of deficient mothers will show signs before any maternal symptoms are apparent.
The cognitive performance of indigenous schoolchildren in relation to their feeding during infancy.
This descriptive cross-sectional study analysed the relationship between feeding in infancy and cognitive performance in 37 school children between 5–6 years of age.
Exclusive breastfeeding for the first 3 months of life may reduce the risk of respiratory allergies and some asthma in children at the age of 6 years.
The author of this paper used data from the USA Infant Feeding Practices Study II to investigate the associations between infant feeding, asthma, and respiratory allergies.
Breastfeeding and Respiratory Antivirals: Coronavirus and Influenza.
This article describes the current knowledge on the safety of respiratory antivirals in breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding and childhood obesity: A 12-country study.
Many factors contribute to the development of obesity and studies have differed on whether they find infant feeding has a significant effect.
Timing of complementary feeding is associated with gut microbiota diversity and composition and short chain fatty acid concentrations over the first year of life.
This study investigated whether introduction of complementary food before 3 months was associated with gut microbiome diversity and composition and levels of faecal SCFA at 3 and 12 months.
