Mitra A K, Rabbani F
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka.
J Diarrhoeal Dis Res. 1995 Mar;13(1):1-7.
Despite world-wide promotion of breastfeeding, there is a declining trend in breastfeeding practice in many developed as well as developing countries. In these countries, health planners are faced with the difficult task of re-educating women on the value of breastfeeding. In this context, it is useful to review the role of breastfeeding in combating infectious diseases, especially childhood diarrhoea, and in preventing deaths. Studies have shown that the duration of benefits of breastfeeding in diarrhoea can range from a few months to several years. However, breastfeeding is not consistently protective in all types of diarrhoea. For example, there is evidence of increased risk of rotavirus diarrhoea in breastfed children compared to non-breastfed children after certain age. Impairment of child growth is another controversial issue associated with prolonged breastfeeding. Is this growth-faltering, or do breastfed children follow a normal growth pattern which is below the reference growth curve? How long should mothers be advised to continue breastfeeding? This review focuses on answers to these questions and discusses benefits of breastfeeding and its controversial issues. The reasons for choosing the case study in Bangladesh are: (i) the prevalence of breastfeeding in Bangladesh is often cited as one of the highest in the world, (ii) diarrhoeal diseases are hyper endemic in this country; and (iii) issues of breastfeeding in several diarrhoeal diseases have been well documented here.
尽管全球都在推广母乳喂养，但在许多发达国家和发展中国家，母乳喂养率却呈下降趋势。在这些国家，卫生规划者面临着一项艰巨任务，即重新教育女性认识母乳喂养的价值。在此背景下，回顾母乳喂养在对抗传染病（尤其是儿童腹泻）以及预防死亡方面的作用很有必要。研究表明，母乳喂养对腹泻的益处持续时间从几个月到数年不等。然而，母乳喂养并非对所有类型的腹泻都有持续的保护作用。例如，有证据表明，在达到一定年龄后，与非母乳喂养儿童相比，母乳喂养儿童感染轮状病毒腹泻的风险更高。儿童生长发育受影响是与延长母乳喂养相关的另一个有争议的问题。这是生长发育迟缓，还是母乳喂养儿童遵循低于参考生长曲线的正常生长模式呢？应该建议母亲持续母乳喂养多长时间呢？本综述聚焦于这些问题的答案，并讨论母乳喂养的益处及其存在争议的问题。选择孟加拉国作为案例研究的原因如下：（i）孟加拉国的母乳喂养率常被视为世界上最高的之一；（ii）腹泻疾病在该国高度流行；（iii）该国已对几种腹泻疾病中的母乳喂养问题进行了充分记录。
