Infant Feeding Practices During the First Postnatal Year and Risk of Asthma and Allergic Disease During the First 6 Years of Life

Abstract

Background:

Breastfeeding may protect against childhood asthma and allergic diseases. Studies have not focused on the mode of feeding human milk and followed children to school age although feeding human milk from a bottle rather than the breast may alter the risk of disease.

Materials and Methods:

At 12 months' postpartum, women in the Moms2Moms study (Columbus, OH) completed a survey assessing sociodemographic and infant feeding behaviors. At 6 years' postpartum, they completed a survey and pediatric medical records were abstracted to assess asthma and allergic disease diagnoses. Logistic regression models were used to estimate associations between infant feeding behaviors and asthma or allergic disease.

Results:

Of 285 children, 16% had asthma and 44% ever had ≥1 allergy diagnosis. Longer durations of each infant feeding behavior were not clearly associated with increased odds of asthma or allergic disease by age 6. Results suggested that longer durations of breast milk feeding (regardless of the mode of feeding) may be related to a lower risk of food allergy (e.g., odds ratio [OR]_{1-month, adjusted} = 0.96, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.87–1.05; OR_{12-month, adjusted} = 0.57, 95% CI = 0.19–1.74), but that the mode of feeding (regardless of the substance fed) may be more meaningful for environmental allergies (e.g., exclusive direct breast milk feeding OR_{12-month, adjusted} = 0.32, 95% CI = 0.06–1.81). However, effect estimates were imprecise and CIs included the null.

Conclusions:

Although no clear associations between mode of breast milk feeding (breast versus expressed) and asthma and allergy outcomes were observed, future research with larger samples should further evaluate these associations.