October 6, 1994: Vol26n5: Breast feeding may cut health risk for 'preemies'

By LOIS BAKER
News Bureau Staff
A study by UB researchers has shown that breast-feeding premature
infants during the first 3-4 weeks of life may help protect them from
developing necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, a potentially
life-threatening bowel inflammation.
	The findings show that premature infants who are not
breast-fed have about a three-times greater risk of developing NEC
during the first four weeks than premature babies who receive any
amount of breast milk during that time.
	Risks were nearly the same for breast- and bottle-fed babies
at two weeks, the results showed, with the protective effect beginning
to appear during the third week, when the risk of NEC for babies who
had received no breast milk was twice that of breast-fed babies.
	Vivien Carrion, assistant professor of pediatrics at UB and
lead investigator on the study, presented the findings at a meeting of
the Society for Pediatric Research.
	Necrotizing enterocolitis is an inflammation of the large and
small intestines that can be brought on by lack of blood flow to the
intestines, enteral feeding, bacterial proliferation or intestinal
dysfunction. Between 5 and 12 percent of all premature infants develop
the condition, which carries a mortality rate of 20-40 percent.
	The purpose of CarrionUs research was to determine if an
association exists between the type of feeding a premature infant
receives and development of NEC.
	The retrospective case-control study involved 100 premature
infants admitted to The ChildrenUs Hospital of Buffalo between January
1986 and December 1992 who developed NEC, and a random group of 100
infants from the same neonatal intensive care unit who did not.
	Babies were matched for age, weight - all weighed less than
1,500 grams at birth - and other significant factors.
	An analysis of feeding methods from the infantsU medical
records showed that breast-feeding was significantly more prevalent
among the babies who did not develop NEC than among those who did
develop the condition. 
	Babies in the control group also were breast-fed longer than
infants in the case group.