Breast "Best" Despite Asthma
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Breast "Best"
Despite Asthma
Date:
Sat, 21 Sep
2002 09:47:12 -0400
From:
Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide
Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman
whitman.christine@epa.gov
cc: clearance@inl.co.nz
Breast best despite asthma
SATURDAY , 21 SEPTEMBER 2002
By STEVE RENDLE
Mothers are being urged to continue breastfeeding their babies, despite shock new research results which say it doubles the risk of children developing asthma in later life.
The news follows reports in July that not breastfeeding long enough can increase the risk of breast cancer.
The latest results come from an Otago University study of 1000 children born between April 1972 and March 1973, and have stunned scientists expecting confirmation of previous studies that breastfeeding reduced childhood wheezing.
They show children breastfed for four weeks or longer were more than twice as likely to develop asthma in mid-childhood, adolescence or young adulthood.
Research team leader Malcolm Sears, now based in the McMaster University, Ontario, Canada, admitted surprise at the findings.
"The message from this study is clear, that breastfeeding, even exclusive breastfeeding, does not protect against asthma and allergies long-term, but appears to increase the risk significantly."
Professor Sears is expecting "healthy debate" over the paper, which appears in Britain's Lancet medical journal today.
"I don't expect to have to dive for cover . . . the message is not to stop breastfeeding, I'm hoping nobody will read that into it. The message is simply . . . that it is different to what we thought and we need to understand the mechanisms of this.
"If someone is breastfeeding solely for the purpose of preventing asthma, then I'm sorry, it's not going to work. But I'm sure that's not the reason people breastfeed."
Health Ministry chief adviser in child and youth health Pat Tuohy said there was no question that breast remained best.
"There are lots of good reasons for breastfeeding and even if it turns out at the end of the day that preventing asthma is not one of them, then there's still sufficient good information around breastfeeding to say it's something parents should do.
"The other thing is that parents should try and breastfeed exclusively if possible. If they decide to breastfeed, try not to give the baby any cow's milk at all, especially if there is a suggestion of allergy in the family . . . Even if breastfeeding didn't prevent anything, it's still the food that nature made for babies."
Rosemary Gordon, director of the La Leche League, said the benefits of breastfeeding "far outweighed" a risk of allergies.
Plunket's general manager of clinical services, Angela Baldwin, said the advice to parents remained the same: "Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months. And the evidence would still support that."
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Debby Sarten added this comment: Seems to me the reason for this is dioxin, namely 2378-TCDD from mothers eating dairy products in NZ. Maybe they should test mothers breast milk for this byproduct of Agent Orange as dioxin is stored in fatty tissue, then they will be able to find the reason for this happening to our babies, seems logical to me, this study does not surprise me at all. PS my children and I have asthma from exposure to Agent Orange.
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