Scientists say that breastfed babies have more challenging temperaments

Scientists say that breastfed babies have more challenging temperaments

Undoubtedly, breastfeeding is the healthiest nutrition for infants ever discovered. It is proven scientifically that mother’s milk is the best diet for a newborn baby for at least two
years. According to a recent study conducted by the scientists, breastfeeding infants have more challenging temperaments than those who are not breastfed.

The study revealed that breastfed babies cry more, laugh less, and generally have more challenging temperaments than formula-fed infants. Despite such behaviour, it is normal for a healthy
child and the mothers should bear with that as it will make their children stronger in future. Most of the mother find it irritating and use formula milk bottles to get more time for other stuff.

Infant irritability is believed to be a natural part of the dynamic communication between mothers and babies. Mothers used bottle-feeding as a comfort eating for the babies, which produced
quieter and apparently more content babies. These babies are usually over-nourished and put on weight too quickly.

The scientists studied the temperament of 316 babies at age three months after getting a 191-item behaviour questionnaire completely filled by their mothers. There was a noticeable difference
between breastfed babies and bottle-fed or mixed-fed.

The authors of the study wrote in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE, “In particular, compared to formula-fed infants, breastfed infants were reported to show greater distress,
less smiling, laughing and vocalisation, to be slower to calm down following distress or excitement, and more difficult to soothe by care-givers.”

Speaking to the media, Dr Ken Ong of the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge said, “There is an overwhelming body of evidence supporting breastfeeding as the normal
and most healthy form of infant nutrition, and our findings do not contradict this.”

He added, “Bottle-fed babies may appear more content, but research suggests that these infants may be over-nourished and gain weight too quickly. Our findings are essentially similar to
other stages of life; people often find that eating is comforting.”

The reasons can be understood why so many mothers give up on breastfeeding after a short time, even after the global health message "breast is best". Meanwhile, Department of Health guidelines
specifically ask mothers to exclusively breastfeed their babies for the first six months after birth.

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Posted by Zeeshan Gohar on Jan 12 2012. Filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry