Breast milk eases addicted newborns' withdrawal (PediatricHealthOnline)

Jun 12 (Reuters Health) - Babies of drug-dependent mothers are born with the same addiction, and have to go through withdrawal. The severity of symptoms is reduced, Australian researchers have found, when such infants are breast fed or given milk expressed by their mothers.

"Promoting the idea of breast-feeding in drug-using women before birth may improve outcome, both medically and socially," Dr. Julee Oei from University of New South Wales, Kensington, told Reuters Health.

The team explains in the journal Pediatrics that addictive drugs are passed into breast milk, "but the quantity of transferred drug is so low that breast-feeding is considered unlikely to prevent neonatal abstinence syndrome," as infant withdrawal is called. There's some evidence, however, that breast-feeding reduces the severity of withdrawal symptoms.



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