After the fact?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

After the fact?

Dr. Michael S. Kramer of McGill University in Montreal and colleagues sought to avoid that conflict by essentially comparing women who breast-fed a lot with women who breast-fed but switched to bottle-feeding early on.

Participants gave birth at 31 hospitals or clinics in the Eastern European republic of Belarus. Half of them implemented a breast-feeding program in which doctors and midwives gave instruction and counseling. The other hospitals served as a control group and provided the usual obstetric care.

By 12 months, nearly 20 percent of the infants who were part of the breast-feeding program were still nursing, while 11.4 percent of the control group were.

About 9 percent of the infants who had been in the breast-feeding program had at least one intestinal infection in the first year, compared with about 13 percent of the control group. About 3 percent of the breast-fed infants developed atopic eczema, a scaly, allergy-associated skin irritation, compared with 6 percent of the other babies.

“The real and clear message is that breast-feeding, especially prolonged breast-feeding, affects child health,” Dr. Ruth A. Lawrence of the University of Rochester Medical Center said in an accompanying editorial.

- Study: Breast Feeding Better for Babies, ABCNews.com, January 6, 2006.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.