Breast-feeding does not protect children against developing asthma or allergies, a study suggests. A large trial involving more than 13,000 women and children found no evidence of a protective effect.

Previous research has suggested that breast-feeding helps to boost a baby’s immune system and can protect against respiratory infections.

Figures released in May showed that fewer than 1 per cent of women in Britain follow government advice to breast-feed exclusively for the first six months.

The Infant Feeding Survey revealed that 76 per cent of women in 2005 started out breast-feeding, up 7 per cent from 2000. But most had resorted to formula milk within weeks and fewer than half were still breast-feeding by the time their baby was six weeks old. Only one in four women was still breast-feeding at six months.

The new study is published today in the British Medical Journal and involved babies born in 1996-7. Mothers and babies were split into two groups, with the first having breast-feeding promoted and supported in hospitals and polyclinics the women and children attended. In the control group, the hospitals and clinics continued with their normal practices and policies.

Within the first group there was a big increase in women breast-feeding exclusively at three months and they breast-fed for longer. The researchers followed up the children at 6. They were tested for asthma and had tests for allergies to the house dust mite, cats, birch pollen, and mixed grasses.

The researchers, led by Michael Kramer, from the Montreal Children’s Hospital, said: “Whether breast-feeding protects against allergy and asthma has been frequently studied and hotly debated for more than 70 years.” They concluded: “Intervention to promote breast-feeding did not reduce the risk of asthma, hay fever, or eczema at age 6.5 years despite large increases in the duration and exclusivity of breast-feeding.”

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