Dr. Elisabeth Mathiesen and colleagues from Copenhagen University Hospital interviewed 102 women with type 1diabetes after 5 days of delivery and again after 4 months to investigate the frequency of long-term breast-feeding and possible factors linked to successful breast-feeding.
More than half of the children had medical complications when they were born, such as jaundice, infection or breathing difficulties. Nonetheless, most of the women (86 per cent) initiated breast-feeding, the team reported in the medical journal Diabetes Care.
By four months after delivery, 54 percent exclusively breast-feeded, 14 per cent partly breast-feeded, and 32 percent did not breast-feed. These rates were similar to those for women in the general population, reports Reuters.
Summing up, the researchers concluded, "the majority of the women with type 1 diabetes initiated breast-feeding and the prevalence of breast-feeding at 4 months was comparable to that in the background population" despite high rates of medical complications among the infants.
