Optimal duration of exclusive breastfeeding

Infants who are exclusively breastfed for six months appear to have normal growth, and may have less morbidity from gastrointestinal and respiratory infection. The mothers of such infants appear to have more prolonged lactational amenorrhoea.

A Cochrane review included 23 studies with a total of 9666 subjects. Eleven studies were from developing countries (2 controlled trials), and 12 from developed countries (all observational studies). Definitions of exclusive breastfeeding varied considerably across studies. Trials and the observational studies suggest that infants who continue to be exclusively breastfed for six months show no deficits in weight or length gain, although larger sample sizes would be required to rule out modest differences in risk of undernutrition. In developing country settings where newborn iron stores may be suboptimal, exclusive breastfeeding without iron supplementatin may compromise haematologic status. Infants who continue exclusive breastfeeding for six months or more appear to have a reduced risk of gastrointestinal or respiratory infection. No significant reduction in risk of atopic eczema, asthma or other atopic outcomes has been demonstrated. The mothers had longer lactational amenorrhoea and more rapid postpartum weight loss.

Comment: The quality of evidence is upgraded by consistent findings.

Ədəbiyyat

1. Kramer MS, Kakuma R. Optimal duration of exclusive breastfeeding. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2002;(1):CD003517 (Last assessed as up-to-date: 17 June 2011).