A scientific report on breastfeeding, published on October 25th in the US, suggests that some of the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) on this practice should be ruled out.
The independent panel of experts “US Preventive Services Task Force” made a review of dozens of scientific studies on the effectiveness of various measures to promote breastfeeding, to update its 2008 recommendations.
For example, they criticize the ninth step of the WHO’s Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, which recommends that parents don’t give pacifiers to newborns because that could discourage breastfeeding.
However, the report said that avoiding pacifiers does not mean improvements for breastfeeding.
Since pacifiers are recommended as a measure to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, the leading cause of newborn death in the United States, the routine recommendations to avoid pacifiers may represent an ethical problem, as stated by the authors of the editorial.
Another recommendation criticized by the authors is the sixth step of the WHO initiative which states that mothers shouldn´t feed their infants with formula during the first days of life, they should only breastfeed them, unless a medical condition prevents it.
There is not scientific evidence that this practice improves breastfeeding. On the contrary, it can increase the risk of complications like dehydration that could lead to a hospitalization during the first week of life, because breast milk does not always flow at once, it can take from four to seven days.
While these complications are usually mild and often resolved quickly, they have a high frequency: from 1% to 2% of newborns in the United States return to the hospital during their first week of life and the risk doubles among babies that are only breastfed,
concluded the experts.