Girls benefit from breastfeeding more than boys

Doubting the long-held belief that breastfeeding protects all babies from the same disease, the study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkin Center for Pediatrics showed that, when infections are The respiratory tract breaks out, the protective effect of breast milk in girls is higher than boys.

Tracking 119 premature babies in Buenos Aires in the first year of life, researchers found that breastfeeding not only provides protection for girls more than boys, but formula-fed girls also have The highest risk of acute respiratory infections.

The results - reported in the June issue of the pediatric journal - raise doubts about the theory that immune system chemicals are present in breast milk and transfer directly from mother to child. It is the task of preventing infectious diseases. Researchers say that if this is true, both boys and girls will be able to be protected equally.

Moreover, breastfeeding does not affect the number of infectious diseases, but the severity and the need for their hospitalization. This means that breast milk does not help a child prevent infectious disease but rather helps a child cope with a more infectious disease.

Dr Fernando Polack, principal researcher and infectious disease specialist at the Children's Center for Hopkins, said: 'In the light of these results, we began to think that milk does not directly deliver care. protect against lung infections and instead activate a common protective mechanism in the child '.

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The results of the study show that, immediately after birth, formula-fed girls are more likely to develop severe respiratory infections that require 8 times more hospitalization than breastfed girls. Milk-fed girls can also develop such infections more than boys who breastfeed or not breast-feed.

Researchers say the results are especially important for health care in developing countries, where antibiotics and other treatments are rare, and where It is estimated that about half of premature babies die in hospitals due to acute respiratory infections.

Polack said: 'When therapies are limited, it helps to know that your high-risk group is formula-fed girls. The results also suggest that mothers of premature babies should be encouraged to breastfeed their babies. "

In contrast, in the United States, medications to prevent complications are always available, and hospitalization is not very frequent. However, the researchers point out that, because these drugs only protect from two of many viruses and are very expensive, mothers should breastfeed both boys and girls when possible. . Although there are gender differences in the level of protection against respiratory diseases, researchers say that breastfeeding is still the best way to nourish both term and newborn babies. immature regardless of gender, and the benefits of breastfeeding are prolonged brain development and general health.

To conduct the study, the researchers tracked the reaction of a first infection after birth, and found that breastfed girls were hospitalized for the lowest acute respiratory disease. Only 6% (2 out of 31 babies) breastfed girls with the first infection were severe enough to be hospitalized compared to 50% (12 of 24 children) who were not breastfed. There are almost no differences in hospitalization due to the first infectious disease in nursing boys or not breast-feeding, with 18% in the breastfeeding and non-breast-feeding groups developing acute respiratory infections. This pattern repeated itself during the first year of life and in later infectious diseases, with breastfed girls showing fewer complications and hospitalizations than girls taking formula, and boys drinking powdered milk and breastfeeding. In the first year of life, formula-fed girls continue to have the highest risk of acute respiratory disease.

Indeed, if breastmilk provides a common activated mechanism but can be changed against a multitude of viruses, then the next step is to figure out exactly how this mechanism is activated and at Why is it relatively harder to activate in boys?

Polack said: ' Clarifying this mechanism could be as effective as 5 or 6 vaccines, because vaccines have a limited scope of protection and are only effective against specific viruses. "