Baby’s First Drink Linked to Lymphoma

If you don’t know by now, breastfeeding is best for babies. In fact, if you don’t know, you may have been living under a rock for the last decade.
If you didn’t know, check out this great site – it lists 101 reasons why breastmilk is best.
http://www.notmilk.com/101.html
A few of the reasons include:
For example, the use of formula instead breastfeeding in industrialized countries is associated with:
• More cases, and more severe cases, of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections.
• Lower scores on tests of neurological development.
• Increased risk of allergies and greater intensity of problems from allergies.
• Increased risk of breast cancer in women who were not breastfed.
• Increased risk of breast cancer in mothers who don't breastfeed.
• Increased risk of type I (juvenile, insulin-dependent) diabetes.
• Increased risk of adult intestinal disorders (ulcerative colitis, Crohn's).

But what I didn’t know is that formula fed babies have a higher risk of developing certain childhood lymphomas. There was as much as an 8 fold increase in risk of developing lymphomas among children artificially fed or breastfed less than six months.
Not only that, but research is showing that prolonged breastfeeding was shown to reduce the risk of childhood acute leukemia. (Prolonged, for this research, was defined as greater than six months.
But if you breastfeed, don’t smoke. Children who breastfed from smoking mothers develope lymphoma between 10 & 40 years old.

Resources:
Davis MK, Savitz DA, Graubard BI. "Infant feeding and childhood cancer." Lancet. 1988;2:365-368
Shu X-O, Clemens H, Zheng W, et al. "Infant breastfeeding and the risk of childhood lymphoma and leukaemia". Int J Epidemiol. 1995;24:27-32