Breastfeeding helps lower ear infections in infants

Recently, South African clothing retailer Edgars had to apologise for asking nursing mother Tasneem Botha to leave because she was looking to feed and change her baby in-store.

Dozens of mothers later staged a nurse-in at the Cape Town address where the incident reportedly took place in a show of support.

Earlier this month a Stellenbosch University child expert called for companies and public transport operators across the country to set aside dedicated places to allow breastfeeding – which is regarded as the single most and cost-effective intervention to address an infant’s nutritional needs.

Professor Mariana Kruger, the head of the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at the university, said that despite being a leading economy on in the continent, SA had one of the poorest breastfeeding rates – putting children at high risk of malnutrition and stunting.

Breastfeeding rates were so so poor in SA that even poorer countries such as Malawi, Peru and Madagascar had better child mortality rates because of their strong breastfeeding culture.

It is genuinely baffling the amount of negative sentiment expressed by both men and women towards breastfeeding in public.

Breastfeeding is known to have many great benefits, and a recent US study, published in the journal Pediatrics, suggests that it can help lower the rate of ear infections in infants, which affects approximately 46% of babies before they reach age one.

The research, which was conducted by University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, was done on 367 babies from the year 2008 until 2014.

The rates of ear infection dropped from 18 to 6% in three month olds, from 39 to 23% in six month olds, and from 62 to 46 percent in one year olds, yourhealth.asiaone.com reported.

"Prolonged breastfeeding was associated with significant reductions in both colds and ear infections, which is a common complication of the cold. It is likely that medical interventions in the past few decades, such as the use of pneumonia and flu vaccines and decreased smoking helped reduce ear infection incidences," said lead study author Dr. Tasnee Chonmaitree.

"Parents should make sure their children receive bacterial and flu vaccines as recommended, breastfeed them as recommended, avoid cigarette smoke exposure and exposure to someone with common cold," Chonmaitree added.

The journal report also encourages mothers to exclusively breastfeed infants until they are at least six months old. This will reportedly reduce allergies, babies' risk of ear and respiratory infections, sudden infant death syndrome, diabetes and childhood obesity.

So there you have it. Breast is best. Happy breastfeeding ladies!