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Not breast feeding or stopping before six months raises a baby’s risk of having nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) later on in life.
Human breast milk contain various biologically-active constituents with a protective effect upon obesity.
It was also found that being obese at the early stage of pregnancy increased a baby’s risk of the disease, which can lead to serious liver damage.
Smoking in the early days of pregnancy also increased the risk of NAFLD later in life.
Infants should be fed breast milk exclusively for the first six months of life. Researchers performed liver ultrasound on more than 1,100 adolescents aged 17 years, who have been followed from birth.
Then they examined their medical records to see if there was a link between how long they were breastfed, their mothers’ weight and smoking habit in pregnancy.
NAFLD was diagnosed in about 15 per cent of the adolescents examined.
It was found 94 per cent had been breastfed as infants.
The duration of breastfeeding before starting supplementary milk was four months in 55 per cent and six months in 40 per cent.