ArticleThe American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene2018
Relationships among Common Illness Symptoms and the Protective Effect of Breastfeeding in Early Childhood in MAL-ED: An Eight-Country Cohort Study.
Article in The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Breastfeeding and the Risk of Infant Illness in Asia: A Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Pooled it
- The Impact of Social Factors on the Benefits of Breastfeeding.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Effectiveness of Couple-Based Optimal Breastfeeding Promotion and Support Interventions on Child Morbidity in Central Ethiopia: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial.Health science reports · 2026Article
- Short-term dynamics of linear growth among Peruvian infants in the first year of life in a population with linear growth faltering.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2024Article
- Effect of exclusive breastfeeding and other infant and young child feeding practices on childhood morbidity outcomes: associations for infants 0-6 months in 5 South Asian countries using Demographic and Health Survey data.International breastfeeding journal · 2024Article
- Infections and nutrient deficiencies during infancy predict impaired growth at 5 years: Findings from the MAL-ED study in Pakistan.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Article
- Exclusive Breastfeeding and Childhood Morbidity: A Narrative Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Review
- Cessation of exclusive breastfeeding and seasonality, but not small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, are associated with environmental enteric dysfunction: A birth cohort study amongst infants in rural Kenya.EClinicalMedicine · 2022Article
- Impact of exclusive breast feeding until six months of age on common illnesses: A prospective observational study.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2022Article
- Full breastfeeding protection against common enteric bacteria and viruses: results from the MAL-ED cohort study.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2022Article
- Determinants of breastfeeding self-efficacy among postpartum women in rural China: A cross-sectional study.PloS one · 2022Article
- Exclusive breastfeeding lowers the odds of childhood diarrhea and other medical conditions: evidence from the 2016 Ethiopian demographic and health survey.Italian journal of pediatrics · 2021Article
- Growth retardation among children in southern Iran: a 7-year population based cohort study.BMC public health · 2020Article
- Early Life Experiences and Trajectories of Cognitive Development.Pediatrics · 2020Observational
- Examining the spatial variations of co-morbidity among young children in Ethiopia.BMC pediatrics · 2020Article
- Surface Electromyographic Analysis of the Suprahyoid Muscles in Infants Based on Lingual Frenulum Attachment during Breastfeeding.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Observational
- Intestinal permeability and inflammation mediate the association between nutrient density of complementary foods and biochemical measures of micronutrient status in young children: results from the MAL-ED study.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2019Article
- Predictors of breastfeeding self-efficacy among women attending an urban postnatal clinic, Uganda.Nursing open · 2019Article
- Enteric dysfunction and other factors associated with attained size at 5 years: MAL-ED birth cohort study findings.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2019Article
- Early linear growth retardation: results of a prospective study of Zambian infants.BMC public health · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
17 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Children in low-income countries experience multiple illness symptoms in early childhood. Breastfeeding is protective against diarrhea and respiratory infections, and these illnesses are thought to be risk factors of one another, but these relationships have not been explored simultaneously. In the eight-site MAL-ED study, 1,731 infants were enrolled near birth and followed for 2 years. We collected symptoms and diet information through twice-weekly household visits. Poisson regression was used to determine if recent illness history was associated with incidence of diarrhea or acute lower respiratory infections (ALRI), accounting for exclusive breastfeeding. Recent diarrhea was associated with higher risk of incident diarrhea after the first 6 months of life (relative risk [RR] 1.10, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.04, 1.16) and with higher risk of incident ALRI in the 3- to 5-month period (RR 1.23, 95% CI 1.03, 1.47). Fever was a consistent risk factor for both diarrhea and ALRI. Exclusive breastfeeding 0-6 months was protective against diarrhea (0-2 months: RR 0.39, 95% CI 0.32, 0.49; 3-5 months: RR 0.83, 95% CI 0.75, 0.93) and ALRI (3-5 months: RR 0.81, 95% CI 0.68, 0.98). Children with recent illness who were exclusively breastfed were half as likely as those not exclusively breastfed to experience diarrhea in the first 3 months of life. Recent illness was associated with greater risk of new illness, causing illnesses to cluster within children, indicating that specific illness-prevention programs may have benefits for preventing other childhood illnesses. The results also underscore the importance of exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months of life for disease prevention.
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