A new study of 316 babies aged three months suggests that breastfed infants cry more than those who are bottle-fed.
But the researchers from the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge say irritability is a natural part of the dynamic communication between mothers and babies.
Lead researcher Dr Ken Ong said: ‘There is an overwhelming body of evidence supporting breastfeeding as the normal and most healthy form of infant nutrition and our findings do not contradict this.
‘Bottle-fed babies may appear more content, but research suggests that these infants may be over-nourished and gain weight too quickly.
‘Our findings are essentially similar to other stages of life; people often find that eating is comforting.
‘Rather than being put off breastfeeding, parents should have more realistic expectations of normal infant behaviour and should receive better understanding and support to cope with difficult infant behaviours if needed.
‘These approaches could potentially promote successful breastfeeding, because currently many mothers attempt to breastfeed but give up after the first few weeks.’
Dr Janine Stockdale, a research fellow at the RCM, said there is a ‘growing mountain’ of evidence that breastfeeding in beneficial for mother and baby.
‘This is a small study and more research is needed,’ she said.
‘It cannot be presumed that physical signalling by the baby automatically means it is hungry; other evidence suggests that babies engage in sucking behaviour called non-nutritive sucking.
‘As breastfeeding mothers are often advised not to use a soother while their baby is learning to breastfeed, this means there is a need to look at babies’ behaviours, taking into consideration whether or not a soother was introduced.
‘Factoring this type of information into the research would enable us to understand more about the suggested differences between the behaviours of breastfed and bottle fed babies.
‘The evidence needs to be seen in a greater context before we start to draw conclusions on this research and we should continue to do all we can to promote and increase the rates of breastfeeding.’
The study is published in the journal
PLoS One and was co-authored by researchers from the University of Cambridge and University College London.
