Breastfeeding May Protect Your Baby From COVID

Breastfeeding is one of the best things a Mom can do for her newborn baby’s health for a lot of reasons.

Not only does breastfeeding provide the ideal nutritional mix of fat, vitamins and proteins in a form more easily digestible than formula, breast milk contains beneficial bacteria and prebiotics that seed infant gut microbiomes, giving your newborn baby a natural boost to their developing immune systems.

For at least the first six months of life, breastfeeding can go a long way toward protecting your baby from future health problems, including allergies, asthma, diarrhea and respiratory illnesses.

You can add protection from COVID to that list of benefits for your newborn baby, according to a recent study appearing in the Journal of Perinatology.

COVID Protection

Researchers from the University of Florida and University of South Carolina had previously worked on a 2021 study that showed how breast milk from vaccinated women contained antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID.

Although scientists detected the presence of antibodies in the earlier study, they couldn’t demonstrate that this protection made it to the microbiomes of babies.

The research team found the evidence they needed in a second study through a comparative analysis of stool samples, breast milk and blood samples collected from babies from vaccinated moms.

After isolating antibodies from infant stool samples, they were added to cells with the same kind of microscopic receptors as COVID, then introduced to a pseudovirus that mimicked COVID but was safe to use in a laboratory setting.

Compared to a control group, the antibodies that fought COVID were far more prevalent among those samples taken from breastfed babies

Beneficial antibodies were also detected in breast milk and blood samples from new moms and were better able to neutralize COVID in the lab too. (However, those antibodies began to diminish after six months, results that mirror other vaccine studies.)

Gut-Friendly Options If You Can’t Breastfeed Your Baby

In a perfect world, new moms would have the opportunity to breastfeed their newborn baby for as long they want, but some cannot due to factors beyond their control.

Fortunately, new moms have gut-friendly options at hand to protect their own health and their babies in the form of multi-strain probiotics.

For example, a recent study of moms-to-be found that taking a probiotic formulated with multiple strains of bacteria from the Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium families, like those found in EndoMune Advanced Probiotic, were critical in relieving common health problems during their pregnancies.

In cases when new moms can’t breastfeed, they should consult with their pediatricians about giving their babies a probiotic like EndoMune Jr. Powder that contains four strains of beneficial bacteria along with a natural prebiotic (FOS) that feeds their developing immune systems in their gut.

Resources

Journal of Perinatology

University of Florida/IFAS

CDC

Grow by WebMD

Breastfeeding Medicine

Oregon Health and Science University