The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that infants receive human milk exclusively for the first 6 months and then continue receiving human milk in combination with complementary foods until the child is 2 years old or as long as both the child and parent want. Feeding of human milk has multiple benefits for the parent and child, including a decreased risk of obesity in the child.
However, in an article and video abstract being early released in Pediatrics this week, Gayle Shipp, PhD, from Michigan State University and colleagues from 16 other US institutions note that there are both genetic and environmental factors associated with obesity, and that mothers who are obese are less likely to start and continue breastfeeding than mothers who are not obese. Their article, entitled “Maternal Pre-Pregnancy BMI, Breastfeeding, and Child BMI,” tackles the important question of how breastfeeding affects child body mass index (BMI) when the mother had obesity pre-pregnancy (10.1542/peds.2023-061466).
The authors analyzed data, including mothers’ pre-pregnancy BMI, infant feeding practices, and child BMI measurements between 2 and 6 years of age from more than 8000 mother-child dyads across the US.
Mothers who were obese were less likely to do any breastfeeding and, if they breastfed, they were more likely to breastfeed for shorter periods of time.
However, 3 months of any or exclusive breastfeeding was associated with lower BMI for children, regardless of whether mothers were healthy weight, overweight, or obese. Even more exciting, the protective effect of breastfeeding against child obesity was strongest for children born to mothers who were obese pre-pregnancy.
This study could not answer the question of why breastfeeding was protective against childhood obesity. Nonetheless, these results are exciting and provide yet more reasons to encourage breastfeeding amongst all mothers, regardless of their BMI.
