What Immunity Do Breast Milk Antibodies Confer?
Discussion
Breast milk (BM) has many benefits including its primary role providing appropriate nutrition for newborns and infants, which includes making those nutrients more bioavailable. While BM does not provide all of the nutritional needs over the entire year or two of breastfeeding, complimentary foods are important for furnishing additional nutritional needs along with helping development of appropriate taste and texture acceptance, along with oral-motor skills. Complimentary foods are recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics when the infant is developmentally ready which is commonly after 6 months of life. Breastfeeding and BM are also associated with other decreased health risks such as diabetes, obesity, allergies, and sudden infant death syndrome. It also helps prevent infections especially in the gastrointestinal tract directly but others more indirectly.
A review about how much a newborn should eat, can be found here.
Learning Point
Maternal antibodies pass to an infant in two basic ways:
Transplacental transfer
Mainly IgG passing directly into the fetus and newborn’s serum
Half-life is 21 days so this immunity wanes over the first year
Provides systematic immunity
Protects against a variety of infections including influenza, pertussis, and tetanus
Transplacental IgE may play a role in allergic response
BM antibodies
Is secretory IgA (the main antibody with a half-life of days to a couple of weeks), IgM and some IgG
Provides important mucosal i...
Source: PediatricEducation.org - Category: Pediatrics Authors: Pediatric Education Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: news
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