Lots of studies have done about the positive impacts of breastfeeding. One of the existing argument is that there is an interaction between babies and the microbial environment.
A new study has reiterated that breastmilk strongly influences the accumulation of viral populations in the infant gut and provides a protective effect against potentially pathogenic viruses.
The research was done at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, involving a large number of babies.
It has established the presence of strong protective effect through breastfeeding and it suppressed the accumulation of these potentially pathogenic viruses. Similar results were seen for infants from the US and Botswana. Another conclusion from this work was that breastmilk could be protective even if sometimes mixed with formula, compared to a with formula-only diet.
“These findings can help us better understand why some babies get sick and develop life-threatening infections in their first months of life,” said senior author Frederic Bushman, Ph.D., chair of the department of Microbiology.
