One of the best ways to decrease the likelihood of developing allergies later in life, according to most alternative medicine practitioners, is to feed an infant mother's milk. Breast-feeding builds a strong immune system equipped to deal with infection, environmental toxins, and food allergens. Nursing contributes to the child having fewer allergies. If babies are given anything other than breast milk in the first few months of life, food sensitivities may develop. Their intestines are not meant to digest anything other than breast milk. The immature cells lining the intestines will allow foreign food particles to pass through undigested. These bits are antigenic [material that causes immune reactions] and may set up an allergenic or antibody response that the child will never outgrow.
A recent Finnish study revealed that breast-feeding in infancy lowered the risk of allergic symptoms by one-third in children by the age 17. In another study, high-risk (atopic) infants were less likely to develop allergic eczema if they were breast-fed for more than four months. In addition, a recent study published in the British Medical Journal reports that babies who are breast-fed during their first six months of life have a significantly lower risk of developing childhood asthma.
Human breast milk contains nutrients that are easily digested contribute to healthy brain development and growth, and provide immunity to infectious agents that the mother (and also the infant) will encounter in their environment. In building an infant's immune system, breast milk acts on many levels. It contains anti-inflammatory substances that infants cannot manufacture on their own; stimulates the production of IgA, which can neutralize a substance foreign to the body before it becomes an allergen; and populates the child's immature intestinal barrier with beneficial microflora, which blocks the growth of disease-causing bacteria. A protein called lactoferrin - which makes up 20% of the total protein in human colostrum (breast milk secreted immediately after delivery) - seems to have an inhibitory effect on "unfriendly" bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia colo, and Helicobacter pylori, all of which are increasingly identified as contributing to numerous health problems, including allergies. According to researchers at the Shanghai Institute for Pediatric Research in Shanghai, China, breast-fed, full-term children had healthier intestinal bacteria than formula-fed infants. Furthermore, their findings supported the claim that factors in breast milk prevent intestinal pathogens from developing.
Most researchers and medical experts have found that children who are breast-fed for at least six months or more experience greater health benefits and fewer episodes of common childhood illnesses, such as ear infections, than do children who are not breast-fed or are breast-fed for less than four months. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children be breast-fed for six to 12 months. The academy suggests that parents can begin to introduce age-specific solid to the child at age six months but the child should continue nursing for at least the first year of life.
If the mother has allergies or sensitivities, breast-feeding alone will not protect a newborn from developing allergies. Mothers can inadvertently pass food antigens and their associated antibodies to their children through nursing or even prior to birth through the wall of the placenta. Antibodies to cow's milk protein, a common trigger of atopic eczema, were detected in breast milk samples taken by German researchers in a study at the Universitats-Kinderklinik in Wien, Germany. The researchers found that infants produced the same type of antibodies to cow's milk that their mothers did even if the children's diet consisted solely of breast milk. But, the researchers found, if foods that trigger an immune response in the mother are avoided both during pregnancy and lactation, infants experience a lower incidence of sensitivity to cow's milk and thus a lower incidence of atopic eczema than infants whose mothers were on an unrestricted diet.
The most common allergy-producing foods are cow's milk, peanuts, eggs, wheat, soy, chicken, turkey, beef and pork. A study appearing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that exclusive breast-feeding and elimination of peanut, egg, fish, and dairy products from the mother's diet during lactation reduced the occurrence of food sensitivity in the infant. Doctors recommend that women predisposed to allergies discover what foods they are allergic to before pregnancy and eliminate them from their diet. They should then breast-feed their babies without consuming dairy products for a minimum of six months while still refraining from the foods they are allergic to. According to a French study, eliminating only cow's milk from the mother's diet did not result in reduced allergic episodes. Elimination of two to four foods, however, did prove sufficient.
