RESEARCH ARTICLE


Breastfeeding During Early Infancy is Associated with a Lower Incidence of Febrile Illnesses



Daniel H. Libraty1, *, Rosario Z. Capeding2, 3, AnaMae Obcena2, Job D. Brion4, Veronica Tallo5
1 Division of Infectious Disease and Immunology, Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA
2 Department of Medicine, Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, Manila, Philippines
3 Department of Microbiology, Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, Manila, Philippines
4 San Pablo City Health Office, San Pablo, Philippines
5 Department of Epidemiology, Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, Manila, Philippines


© 2013 Libraty et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Rm S6-862, Division of ID, UMMS, 55 Lake Ave N, Worcester, MA 01655, USA; Tel: 508-856-4182; Fax: 508-856-4890; E-mail: daniel.libraty@umassmed.edu


Abstract

Human breast milk is known to contain immunoprotective, antimicrobial, and anti-inflammatory agents. In a prospective clinical study of dengue virus infections during infancy, we examined the correlation between breastfeeding and the development of febrile illnesses in an infant population. We found that breastfeeding status and the frequency of breastfeeding during early infancy was associated with a lower incidence of febrile illnesses.

Keywords: Breastfeeding, bottle-feeding, infant, fever.