Breast feeding as a determinant of severity in shigellosis. Evidence for protection throughout the first three years of life in Bangladeshi children

Little is known about the effect of breast feeding upon the severity of illness due to specific diarrheal pathogens. Using a systematically sampled and evaluated population of children aged less than 3 years, who attended a diarrheal disease hospital in Bangladesh, the authors performed a case-contr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAmerican journal of epidemiology Vol. 123; no. 4; p. 710
Main Authors Clemens, J D, Stanton, B, Stoll, B, Shahid, N S, Banu, H, Chowdhury, A K
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.04.1986
Subjects
Bangladesh
Breast Feeding
Dehydration - etiology
Dysentery, Bacillary - etiology
Dysentery, Bacillary - prevention & control
Educational Status
Epidemiologic Methods
Female
Hospitalization
Humans
Income
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Male
Measles - complications
Risk
Seasons
Shigella - isolation & purification
Statistics as Topic
Bangladesh
Comparative Studies
Nutrition
Health
Southern Asia
Diarrhea
Biology
Gastrointestinal Effects
Research Methodology
Diseases
Studies
Bangladesh
Asia
Breast Feeding > beneficial effects
Developing Countries
Diarrhea, Infantile > prevention and control
Infant Nutrition
Physiology
Child Health
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Summary:Little is known about the effect of breast feeding upon the severity of illness due to specific diarrheal pathogens. Using a systematically sampled and evaluated population of children aged less than 3 years, who attended a diarrheal disease hospital in Bangladesh, the authors performed a case-control study that assessed whether breast feeding reduces the severity of illness in shigellosis. From 540 children presenting with shigellosis between 1980-1982, they created a group of cases (n = 53) with severe illness and controls (n = 487) with non-severe illness. Overall, the odds ratio relating breast feeding to the severity of shigellosis (0.49, p = 0.01) suggested a substantial mitigating effect of breast feeding upon clinical severity. The high degree of protection against severe shigellosis was evident for breast-fed children up to 35 months of age, as well as for children at high risk for death because of severe malnutrition or measles. Because shigellosis continues to account for substantial morbidity and mortality in children in developing countries, the results support prolonged breast feeding in these settings.
ISSN:0002-9262