Most doctors urge women to breast feed their kids owing to the health benefits of the same. Unleashing a distinct facet of mother care, scientists from the Medical Research Council have unfolded a link between breastfeeding and baby temperament.
This study constituted 316 babies aged 3 months who were either breastfed or formula-fed. The former group of infants cried more and could not be soothed down easily, as reported by the mothers. This was unlikely of babies who were fed milk formulas.
Lead researcher Dr Ken Ong, a Paediatrician from the MRC Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge, commented, “There is an overwhelming body of evidence supporting breastfeeding as the normal and most healthy form of infant nutrition and our findings do not contradict this. Bottle-fed babies may appear more content, but research suggests that these infants may be over-nourished and gain weight too quickly. Our findings are essentially similar to other stages of life; people often find that eating is comforting.”
Surprisingly, professionals are of the opinion that the crankiness observed in breast fed babies is a natural part of interactions in a mother-child relationship. These findings should not discourage women from breast feeding their kids, the team asserted.
Professionals believed that many mothers begin to breastfeed, but eventually give up the practice claiming that their children were not satisfied completely. The mothers attributed the irritability of kids to dissatisfaction.
Though the relationship between breastfeeding and infant temperament is not causal, scientists believed that crying could be a part of the interesting and dynamic signals exchanged between mother and child.
The study is published in the journal, PLoS One.