It has been a common advice to pregnant women and new mothers to provide exclusive breastfeeding in the first year of their babies as it could effectively improve a child’s health. However, a new study found that breastfeeding does not offer significant benefits in preventing development of allergies in children.

Breastfeeding is commonly considered as an effective way to reduce the risk of allergic rhinitis or hay fever, food allergies, asthma and eczema in children. However, researchers found that found that breastmilk and commercially available milk have a similar effect on the allergies of children.

In the study recently presented at the ACAAI’s Annual Scientific Meeting, the researchers divided the participants into two groups to analyse the difference in the effect of breastfeeding and formula feeding on the children. One group comprised those who were breastfed, while the other group was made up of those who were formula-fed.

The study found that hay fever occured in both breastfed and formula-fed children. Both groups also had the same number of children that had developed asthma, eczema and food allergy, according to lead author Quindelyn Cook from the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI).

The findings come from the health analysis of 194 young patients aged four to 18. The participants were all diagnosed with hay fever, with documented results through a skin prick test.

However, Christina Ciaccio, an allergist and co-author of the study, suggests that mothers continue to breastfeed their children as it mainly delivers more health benefits despite having no significant effect in preventing allergies. She added that larger studies are needed to identify the implications of the findings to a larger population.

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