Early infant feeding - essential reading week/lecture 3

Question 1

Li et al., 2010
do infants fed from bottle lack self-regulation of milk intake compared with directly breastfed infants?

Answer 1

• Only 27% of infants exclusively BF in early infancy emptied the bottle or cup in late infancy
  
  • 54% who were fed both by BF and bottle emptied the cup/bottle
  • 68% of those fed by bottle did so
  • Infants who were bottle fed more intensively early in life were approximately 71% or 2x as likely to empty the bottle or cup later in life than those who were bottle fed less intensively
  • Infants who are bottle-fed in early infancy are more likely to empty the bottle or cup in late infancy than those who are fed directly at the breast.
  • Bottle-feeding, regardless of the type of milk, is distinct from feeding at the breast in its effect on infants’ self-regulation of milk intake.

Question 2

Farrow et al., 2013
Milk Feeding, Solid Feeding, and Obesity Risk: A Review of the Relationships Between Early Life Feeding Practices and Later Adiposity

Answer 2

• Childhood obesity is a major health issue associated with ill-health consequences during childhood and into adulhood
  
  • Eating behaviours are formed during early childhood
  • BF may have mall protective effect against subsequent obesity however this association is often negligible when confounding factors are controlled for.
  • Very early introduction to solid foods (before 13 weeks) may be associated with faster early weight gain
  • Overly restricting high calorie foods may be associated with child weight gain over time

Question 3

Ustun et al., 2022
Flavor Sensing in Utero and Emerging Discriminative Behaviors in the Human Fetus.

Answer 3

• Foetuses exposed to carrot flavour (n = 35) showed “lip-corner puller” and “laughter-face gestalt” more frequently, whereas foetuses exposed to kale flavour (n = 34) showed more “upper-lip raiser,” “lower-lip depressor,” “lip stretch,” “lip presser,” and “cry-face gestalt” in comparison with the carrot group and a control group not exposed to any flavours (n = 30).
  
  • The complexity of facial gestalts increased from 32 to 36 weeks in the kale condition, but not in the carrot condition.
  • Findings of this study have important implications for understanding the earliest evidence for foetal abilities to sense and discriminate different flavours.