Expert claims: ‘Breast isn’t always best and can increase the risk of asthma’

Dr Cynthia Colen, from Ohio State University, who carried out the research, says she does not want to change the perception of breastfeeding, but make mothers who cannot breastfeed feel less stigmatised.

Speaking about her findings, she explained that previous research had not been carried out on siblings from the same family, and therefore does not account for other factors.

She said: ‘Many previous studies suffer from selection bias. They either do not or cannot statistically control for factors such as race, age, family income, mother's employment - things we know that can affect both breast-feeding and health outcomes.'

Colen's own research analysed a total of 8,237 children made up of 7,319 siblings and 1,773 ‘discordant’ sibling pairs, where one was breastfed with the other given a bottle.

The study of the siblings who were differently fed within the same families, showed scores reflecting breastfeeding's positive effects on 10 of the indicators were closer to zero and not statistically significant - meaning any differences could have occurred by chance.

The most surprising finding was that children who were breastfed were at greater risk of asthma.

This could however be because the data relied on people self diagnosing themselves with the condition.

Explaining her findings Colen said:

‘Mums with more resources - with higher levels of education and higher levels of income - and more flexibility in their daily schedules are more likely to breastfeed their children and do so for longer periods of time.’

The NHS recommends that mothers breastfeed for about six months.

Dr Colen said: ‘I'm not saying breastfeeding is not beneficial, especially for boosting nutrition and immunity in newborns.

‘But if we really want to improve maternal and child health, let's also focus on things that can really do that in the long term - like subsidised day care, better maternity leave policies and more employment opportunities for low-income mothers that pay a living wage, for example.’

‘If breastfeeding doesn't have the impact we think it will have on long-term childhood outcomes then even though it's very important in the short-term we really need to focus on other things.

‘We need to take a much more careful look at what happens past that first year of life and understand breastfeeding might be very difficult, even untenable, for certain groups of women.

‘Rather than placing the blame at their feet let's be more realistic about what breastfeeding does and doesn't do.'

What do you think? Let us know in the comments box below.