The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Breast-feeding protects against respiratory syncytial virus infections.
Open accessAbstract
Eight out of 115 infants admitted to hospital with respiratory syncytial (RS) virus infection had been breast-fed compared with 46 out of 167 controls; this difference was statistically significant. Twenty-one specimens of human colostrum were examined, and all contained RS virus neutralising activity. Specific IgA and IgG were detected in 18 specimens, whereas IgM was detected in none. The titre of IgA antibody was usually higher and correlated more closely to the titre of neutralising activity than that of IgG. Infants inhale milk feeds and regurgitate them through the nose, and the IgA collecting in the respiratory tract might protect against severe respiratory infection. Alternatively, if severe RS virus illness is a sign of hypersensitivity to the virus breast-feeding might protect the infant from an early sensitising infection.
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Citations
Cited by
Human milk oligosaccharides: Every baby needs a sugar mama
Bode, L. (2012) · Glycobiology · doi:10.1093/glycob/cws074 · Cited by 1,809
Chanock, R. M., Kim, H. W., Brandt, C., & Parrott, R. H. (1976) · Viral Infections of Humans · doi:10.1007/978-1-4613-3988-5_17 · Cited by 1,085
Factors influencing the relation of infant feeding to asthma and recurrent wheeze in childhood
Wright, A. L. (2001) · Thorax · doi:10.1136/thorax.56.3.192 · Cited by 411
Anti-infective properties of breast milk
Welsh, J. K., & May, J. T. (1979) · The Journal of Pediatrics · doi:10.1016/s0022-3476(79)80340-6 · Cited by 279
Metadata
- Authors
- Downham, M. A., Scott, R., Sims, D. G., Webb, J. K., & Gardner, P. S.
- Venue
- BMJ
- Publisher
- BMJ
- Published
- 1976-07-31
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 6030
- Pages
- 274-276
- ISSN
- 0007-1447 (ISSN-L)
- 1468-5833
- OpenAlex
- W1969516167
- Cited by
- 236
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 14.14
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Breast-feeding protects against respiratory syncytial virus infections. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1136/bmj.2.6030.274
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- Downham, M. A., Scott, R., Sims, D. G., Webb, J. K., & Gardner, P. S. (1976). Breast-feeding protects against respiratory syncytial virus infections. BMJ. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.2.6030.274
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
