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Home › Articles › Breast is Best › The Breastfeeding and Asthma Connection

The Breastfeeding and Asthma Connection

Wean Today, Wheeze Tomorrow?

By Phyllis Ring

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Wean Today, Wheeze Tomorrow-Breastfeeding and Asthma PreventionWhat is it about breastmilk that seems to contribute to future lung health and asthma prevention?

"Let's turn this question around," Dr. Hertz says. "What is it about formula exposure that makes it more likely that children will be affected by respiratory illnesses and asthma? From the illness-prevention aspect, it has to do with immunoglubulins like secretory IgA, infection-fighting cells and antibacterial factors that a baby doesn't get in formula, but that the breastfed baby gets from its mother's breast milk. From the asthma aspect, there is a connection between certain respiratory illnesses like RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) and wheezing later in life. The question of sensitization to foreign proteins probably plays a part as well."

Oddy describes how small droplets of milk that naturally enter the baby's airways and lungs during feeding can actually deliver antibodies and other protective factors to the child's respiratory tract that protect against respiratory infection. She also notes that the breakdown of breast milk's fatty acids in an infant's stomach helps reduce the risk of infection in the lungs, and her study found that exclusively breastfed babies have significantly larger thymus glands during infancy. This primary central gland of the immune system is likely to have significant effects on immune system development that would extend well into childhood and beyond.

"I am glad about the publication of the study," Dr. Newman says. "We seem to need evidence that breastfeeding is better. What we really need is evidence to show that formula feeding is as good as the normal, physiologic – that is, breastfeeding. There is no such evidence."

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