Immunity from breast milk

Breastfeeding Benefits Your Baby’s Immune System

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By: Claire McCarthy, MD, FAAP

Breast milk is the food naturally designed to best meet the needs of human babies. It has all the necessary nutrients, in just the right amounts, and is easy to digest. Beyond the nutritional benefits, here's a great bonus: Breast milk also helps build and support your baby's immune system. Read on to learn how.

Breast milk: food & infection fighter

Breast milk contains antibodies that can fight infection. Those antibodies are present in high amounts in colostrum, the first milk that comes out of the breasts after birth. However, there are antibodies in breastmilk the entire time a mother continues to nurse. Through these antibodies, the mother can pass on some protection from infectious illness she had in the past, and those she gets while breastfeeding. Breast milk can literally give babies a head start in preventing and fighting infections.

Breast milk also is made up of other proteins, fats, sugars and even white blood cells that work to fight infection in many different ways. They are especially helpful in fighting gastrointestinal infections, since breast milk heads right to the stomach and intestine when your baby eats. The different factors in breast milk work directly within the intestine before being absorbed and reaching the entire body. This also sets the stage for a protective and balanced immune system that helps recognize and fight infections and other diseases even after breastfeeding ends.

Other factors in breast milk directly stimulate and support the immune system. These include lactoferrin and interleukin-6, -8 and -10. These proteins help to balance the immune system inflammatory response, which is needed for immune function but can be damaging in excess.

There's even evidence that nursing mothers who are vaccinated against COVID-19 can pass along antibodies to the virus through breast milk. Although it's not proven, these antibodies may help protect babies too young for the vaccine. (See Breastfeeding During the COVID-19 Pandemic.")

Is breastmilk probiotic?

Breast milk has "probiotic" factors, too. Some support the immune system and others serve as a nutrient source for healthy bacteria in the body, called the human microbiome. The healthy microbiome can play a lifelong role in not only preventing infection, but also in decreasing the risk of allergies, asthma, obesity and other chronic diseases.

With all these immunity-boosting factors in breast milk, it is not surprising that breastfed babies are less likely to suffer from ear infections, vomiting, diarrhea, pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and certain types of meningitis. Research also shows that children who nurse for more than six months are less likely to develop childhood leukemia and lymphoma than those who receive formula. This may be in part because these types of cancer are affected by disruptions to the immune system.

Remember

To help keep babies healthy, communities can take steps to support mothers who choose to breastfeed their babies. This can include offering paid leave and giving employees places and time to pump breast milk. If you're breastfeeding your baby or have any questions, never hesitate to talk with your pediatrician. If you can't breastfeed, or for personal reasons choose not to, talk to your pediatrician about the many other ways to support your baby's health.

More information

Breastfeeding: AAP Policy Explained
Breastfeeding During the COVID-19 Pandemic

About Dr. McCarthy

Claire McCarthy, MD, FAAP is a primary care pediatrician at Boston Children's Hospital, an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, a senior editor for Harvard Health Publications, and an official spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics. She writes about health and parenting for the Harvard Health Blog, Huffington Post and many other online and print publications.

Last Updated: 7/19/2022

Source: American Academy of Pediatrics (Copyright © 2020)

The information contained on this Web site should not be used as a substitute for the medical care and advice of your pediatrician. There may be variations in treatment that your pediatrician may recommend based on individual facts and circumstances.

Breastfeeding provides passive and likely long-lasting active immunity

Review

. 1998 Dec;81(6):523-33; quiz 533-4, 537.

doi: 10.1016/S1081-1206(10)62704-4.

L A Hanson¹

Affiliations

Affiliation

¹ Department of Clinical Immunology, Göteborg University, Sweden. [email protected]

PMID: 9892025
DOI: 10.1016/S1081-1206(10)62704-4

Review

L A Hanson. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 1998 Dec.

. 1998 Dec;81(6):523-33; quiz 533-4, 537.

doi: 10.1016/S1081-1206(10)62704-4.

Author

L A Hanson¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Clinical Immunology, Göteborg University, Sweden. [email protected]

PMID: 9892025
DOI: 10.1016/S1081-1206(10)62704-4

Abstract

Objectives: The reader of this review will learn about the mechanisms through which breastfeeding protects against infections during and most likely after lactation, as well as possibly against certain immunologic diseases, including allergy.

Data sources: I have followed the literature in the area closely for the last 30 to 40 years and have made repeated literature searches through MEDLINE, most recently in 1998. Textbooks and peer-reviewed journals have been sought for, as well as books representing meeting reports in English, French, German, and Spanish.

Results: Human milk protects against infections in the breastfed offspring mainly via the secretory IgA antibodies, but also most likely via several other factors like the bactericidal lactoferrin. It is striking that the defense factors of human milk function without causing inflammation, some components are even directly anti-inflammatory. Protection against infections has been well evidenced during lactation against, e.g., acute and prolonged diarrhea, respiratory tract infections, otitis media, urinary tract infection, neonatal septicemia, and necrotizing enterocolitis. There is also interesting evidence for an enhanced protection remaining for years after lactation against diarrhea, respiratory tract infections, otitis media, Haemophilus influenzae type b infections, and wheezing illness. In several instances the protection seems to improve with the duration of breastfeeding. Some, but not all studies have shown better vaccine responses among breastfed than non-breastfed infants. A few factors in milk like anti-antibodies (anti-idiotypic antibodies) and T and B lymphocytes have in some experimental models been able to transfer priming of the breastfed offspring. This together with transfer of numerous cytokines and growth factors via milk may add to an active stimulation of the infant's immune system. Consequently, the infant might respond better to both infections and vaccines. Such an enhanced function could also explain why breastfeeding may protect against immunologic diseases like coeliac disease and possibly allergy. Suggestions of protection against autoimmune diseases and tumors have also been published, but need confirmation.

Conclusions: Breastfeeding may, in addition to the well-known passive protection against infections during lactation, have a unique capacity to stimulate the immune system of the offspring possibly with several long-term positive effects.

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Publication types

MeSH terms

How breastfeeding affects the development of the child's immune system

Summary. With breast milk, cells of the mother's immune system enter the child's body

For a long time, scientists believed that breast milk provides immune protection against pathogens of infectious pathologies due to the presence of specific antibodies in it, forming the so-called passive immunity. In new work, researchers at the University of California, USA, have shown that breastfeeding, among other things, promotes the development of a child's own immune system through a process called "maternal learning immunity" by the team of scientists. The results of the work are presented in the Journal of Immunology.

Specific maternal immune cells found in breast milk pass through the baby's intestinal wall and travel to the thymus, an organ of the immune system. There, they "train" the developing cells to resist the pathogens that the mother encountered. In the course of the study, which used a specific model of feeding laboratory mice, scientists received important information about the vaccination of newborns. So, they noted that vaccination of a nursing mother has a significant impact on the state of the immune system of her child. The number of immune cells transferred from mother to child depends on what infectious agents and how often the woman has encountered. If her immunity against some pathogens is strained, she will pass on many immune defense cells through breast milk. Scientists have suggested that such mechanisms in the past contributed to the survival of children from royal families, since the nurses who were assigned to them were usually from the lower social strata and faced a large number of pathogens of infectious pathologies.

One of the infectious agents studied in the course of this work was the causative agent of tuberculosis, a widespread disease in many countries of the world, the incidence of which is constantly growing due to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains. In general, children vaccinated against tuberculosis rarely have a good immunological response - vaccination prevents the development of severe complications, but does not reduce the risk of the most common pulmonary form of the disease. The authors of the work hope that vaccination of nursing mothers can improve the level of immune protection of their children against tuberculosis. In this work, they obtained evidence that immunity created in this way is more effective than direct vaccination of a child. Undoubtedly, additional clinical studies are needed to make any recommendations.

The author of the work, Ameae Walker, emphasized that the identified mechanism for the transmission of immunological information is fundamentally new, it consists in copying maternal immune cells by the child's body for further protection against pathogens of infectious pathologies. It is known that some vaccines are unsafe for newborns or their administration does not provide the necessary level of immunological protection. Now, based on the results obtained, it is possible to recommend vaccination to women planning a pregnancy so that their future children receive the necessary level of immunity. The researchers acknowledge that at present such research has only been done in laboratory animals, but it is known that in humans, immune cells are also transferred from mother to child during breastfeeding.

Yulia Kotikovich

Immunity, breast milk and milk formula: finding the optimal balance

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