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Breastfeeding and the risk for diarrhea morbidity and mortality

Laura M Lamberti1, Christa L Fischer Walker, Adi Noiman

  • 1Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.

BMC Public Health
|April 20, 2011
PubMed

Insights

Exclusive breastfeeding for infants and any breastfeeding for young children significantly reduces diarrhea incidence, mortality, and hospitalizations. These findings support WHO recommendations for breastfeeding as a crucial child survival strategy.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatrics
  • Public Health
  • Epidemiology

Background:

  • Suboptimal breastfeeding practices increase diarrhea morbidity and mortality in developing nations.
  • Lack of exclusive breastfeeding (0-5 months) and any breastfeeding (6-23 months) are critical risk factors.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To quantify the protective effects of varying breastfeeding levels against diarrhea and all-cause mortality.
  • To assess protection against diarrhea incidence, prevalence, mortality, and hospitalization.

Main Methods:

  • Systematic literature review (1980-2009) on suboptimal breastfeeding and diarrhea outcomes.
  • Random effects meta-analyses to determine pooled relative risks by age and outcome.

Main Results:

  • Breastfeeding demonstrates significant protective effects against diarrhea and all-cause mortality.
  • Exclusive breastfeeding (0-5 months) and any breastfeeding (6-23 months) offer the greatest protection.
  • Not breastfeeding increases diarrhea mortality risk by 10.52 (0-5 months) and 2.18 (6-23 months) compared to breastfeeding.

Conclusions:

  • Findings strongly support the World Health Organization's exclusive breastfeeding recommendation for the first six months.
  • Breastfeeding is vital for preventing diarrhea-related illness and death throughout the first two years of life.
Abstract

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