ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2015
Is infant immunization by breastfeeding possible?
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- Human Milk Bioactive Compounds and Allergic- and Infectious-Related Infant Outcomes: A Systematic Review.Molecular nutrition & food research · 2026Pooled it
- Breastfeeding and the Risk of Infant Illness in Asia: A Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Pooled it
- Prevalence and predictors of breastfeeding practices in Saudi Arabia: a national cross-sectional study based on the 2021 WHO breastfeeding indicators.International breastfeeding journal · 2025Article
- Relationship between maternal egg consumption during lactation and the risk of developing egg allergies in 12-month-old infants: A multicenter cohort study.Japan journal of nursing science : JJNS · 2025Article
- Acquisition and establishment of the oral microbiota.Periodontology 2000 · 2021Review
- The risk of infectious pathogens in breast-feeding, donated human milk and breast milk substitutes.Public health nutrition · 2021Review
- The role of microbiota in neonatal hyperbilirubinemia.American journal of translational research · 2020Review
- Pre-conception maternal helminth infection transfers via nursing long-lasting cellular immunity against helminths to offspring.Science advances · 2019Article
- Eliciting Epitope-Specific CD8+ T Cell Response by Immunization with Microbial Protein Antigens Formulated with α-Galactosylceramide: Theory, Practice, and Protocols.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2017Article
- Biological challenges to effective vaccines in the developing world.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Breastfeeding is known as the most efficient way to prevent infectious disease in early life. Maternal anti-microbial immunoglobulins transfer through milk confers passive immunity to the breastfed child while his immune system is maturing. Maternal milk also contains bioactive factors that will stimulate this maturation. From the literature on breastfeeding prevention of immune-mediated disease and more specifically from our experiments conducted in the field of allergic disease prevention, we propose that breastfeeding may also induce antigen-specific immune responses in the breastfed child. We found that early oral antigen exposure through breast milk leads to tolerance or immune priming depending on the nature of the antigen transferred and accompanying maternal milk cofactors. Here, we will discuss our data in the light of prevention of infectious disease and will propose that possible milk transfer of microbial antigen could affect actively the immune response in breastfed children and thereby their long-term susceptibility to infectious disease. Further research in this direction may lead to novel strategies of early life vaccination, taking advantage of the possibility to stimulate antigen-specific immune responses through breast milk.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.