DERMATOLOGY
Benefits of Breastfeeding
for Your Child's Skin Health
Many studies show that breastfeeding can
help fortify a developing child's immune
system…new evidence indicates that it
may also help guard against eczema.
There are numerous reports touting the benefits of breastfeeding, but
contributing to the health of your child’s skin might be another one to
add to the list!
According to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC),
breastfed infants have reduced risks
for developing many chronic conditions,
including asthma and obesity.
New research focuses on the effects
of breastfeeding on another chronic
condition, eczema.
ABOUT ECZEMA
Eczema is a chronic condition characterized
by extremely itchy skin that,
when scratched, becomes inflamed
and covered with blisters that crack
easily. While genes and the environment
are implicated in this inflammatory
disease, many questions
remain unanswered, such as how
best to prevent it.
Children exclusively breastfed for the
first three months of life had significantly
lower odds of having eczema at
age 6 compared with peers who were
not breastfed or were breastfed for
less time, according to preliminary
research presented during the American
Academy of Allergy, Asthma &
Immunology 2019 Annual Meeting.
“The evidence that being exclusively
breastfed protects children from developing
eczema later in life remains
mixed,” says Katherine M. Balas, BS,
BA, a clinical research assistant at
Children's National and the study's
lead author. “Our research team is
trying to help fill that data gap.”
ABOUT THE STUDY
Balas and colleagues tapped data
collected in Infant Feeding Practices
Study II, a longitudinal study co-led
by the CDC and the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) from 2005 to
2007, as well as the agencies' 2012
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