Breastfeeding may help prevent childhood obesity

AORN Journal, August, 2006

Overweight mothers with gestational diabetes who breastfeed their infants for more than three months may decrease their infants' risk for obesity tater in childhood, according to an April 26, 2006, news release from the American Diabetes Association. Researchers in Germany studied 324 infants born between 1995 and 2000 to women with gestational diabetes, a condition that affects approximately 4% of all pregnant women. Gestational diabetes occurs when a woman who has never previously been diagnosed with diabetes has high blood sugar levels during pregnancy. The condition resolves after pregnancy but leaves the mother and child at a greater risk for type 2 diabetes later in life.

Researchers found that more than 37% of the children who were not breastfed at all were overweight by eight years of age. Among those who were breastfed for up to three months, 32.5% became overweight. Of those children who were breastfed longer than three months, however, only 22% became overweight. Researchers also found that women who were obese and whose children were therefore at greater risk for obesity were twice as likely to forego breastfeeding compared to their healthier-weight counterparts.

The researchers emphasize that obesity is a major public health issue that contributes to health problems in adults; it may be beneficial for mothers diagnosed with gestational diabetes to breastfeed theft infants as long as possible.

Breastfeeding Helps Prevent Obesity in Kids (news release, Alexandria, Va: American Diabetes Association, May 26, 2006) http://www.diabetes.org/uedocuments /May06Final.pdf (accessed 12 June 2006).