Another reason to breastfeed

What you need to know:

  • The idea is that while breastfed babies limit their own intake of milk because they have to work hard to get it, bottle-fed babies lie back and swallow what they are given. In this way, the bottle-fed babies will be offered more than they need, building up a greater appetite.
  • Not only is it harder to overfeed a breastfed baby, but due the composition of cow’s milk, bottle-fed babies put on weight faster too – something we wish to avoid in light of these findings.

Are you a woman who’s struggling with her weight? What if there was a way to make it less likely that your new-born child would also face the same problem? It now appears that there may be a (partial) solution.

According to research published a few months ago in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, bottle-feeding babies can lead to adult obesity. In fact, according to Professor Atul Singhal from the Institute of Child Health in London, the lead author in the study, at least 20 per cent of adult obesity is caused by over-feeding in infancy.

The idea is that while breastfed babies limit their own intake of milk because they have to work hard to get it, bottle-fed babies lie back and swallow what they are given. In this way, the bottle-fed babies will be offered more than they need, building up a greater appetite.

So it appears, contrary to popular wisdom, plump babies are not necessarily the ideal.

BEST START TO LIFE

While this is the first time this has been proven scientifically, it isn’t actually a new idea. The concept that over-nutrition in early life leads to obesity and associated problems in later life has been observed in animals and humans before.

Professor Singhal and his colleagues followed up on two similar studies that were conducted in the 1990s. Some of the children in these studies were given nutritionally enriched baby milk, while the others were given standard formula. It turns out that the ones who received the extra nutrition had a fat mass that between the ages of five and eight was 22-38 per cent more than the others. And, without intending to be politically incorrect, we know that fat kids generally make for fat adults.

So why is breastfeeding superior to bottle-feeding? Not only is it harder to overfeed a breastfed baby, but due the composition of cow’s milk, bottle-fed babies put on weight faster too – something we wish to avoid in light of these findings.

But these recent studies aside, breast-feeding really is the best start in life you can give your child. Breast-feeding helps to build a healthy immune system, it keeps the baby’s guts healthy, and protects against asthma, eczema and heart disease – not to mention the bonding experience. Furthermore, it is so ‘complete’ that it provides a baby with all the nutrients it needs for growth and development. 

As a recent British study of 14,000 babies demonstrated, babies who are exclusively breastfed for the first three months at least - and sometimes for the first 12 months - registered far higher scores for verbal IQ, performance IQ and general IQ when they were tested at six-and-a-half years.