Breast-feeding during infancy in patients who later develop Crohn's disease.

Breast milk is of importance for protection against infection and for normal development of the intestinal mucosa. This study is a case-control study comparing the length of the breast-feeding period of patients who later in life develop Crohn's disease with matched control individuals. In 308 matched pairs both patient and control were able to produce information concerning the length of their period of breast-feeding. The mean length of the breast-feeding period was 4.59 months among patients and 5.76 months among controls, a significant difference (p less than 0.01). Crohn's disease patients were particularly overrepresented among those with no or very short periods of breast-feeding.