Infants who are breastfed exclusively show less hypothalamic stress response than infants who have been breastfed little or not at all, according to a study in 42 healthy, 5-month-old infants and their mothers.
Article from Contemporary Pediactrics
Half of the infants in the study group had been breastfed continuously since birth (high-breastfeeding group), whereas the other half had been breastfed for no longer than 3 weeks or had not been breastfed (low-breastfeeding group). Investigators compared cortisol stress reactivity in the 2 groups of infants by analyzing saliva samples before and 30 minutes after conducting a mother-infant interaction procedure...