by Lauren Porter

If nothing else, the revolution of neurological data has turned our attention to the details of family life.  No longer do we debate nature versus nurture, but we now look to integrate their influences, to maximise the potential of the genes by creating the optimal nurturing environment.  One of the details that received attention in the neuropsychological literature is the role of breastfeeding in unlocking that potential and in helping to minimise dangers on the environmental scene.

The public awareness of breastfeeding as ‘best for babies’ and ‘nature’s perfect food’ is strong.  You find little, if any debate, about the superiority of breastmilk.  Yet anyone who has ever breastfed can bear witness to the fact that breastfeeding is much more than sustenance. It is nourishment of a more holistic kind and encompasses the realm of the psychological.  Of course, all feeding interactions - whether from a bottle or breast - inhabit emotional territory.  But what we are learning is that breastfeeding has the capability to protect both mothers and babies from depression and to help lift dyads into more attuned and optimal ways of relating.

The ravages of postnatal depression on mother and baby are well documented.  Mothers experience low moods, sadness, difficulty bonding, trouble sleeping, eating and enjoying life.  Babies in turn establish a neurological pattern that mirrors their mother’s state.  They are more withdrawn, less active, more unsettled and less able to sustain positive interaction.  Additionally, longitudinal research has shown that these impairments can persist into childhood, with children showing less robust cognitive and emotional states of well being than their non-depression group counterparts.  The neurological patterning - the states that become traits, to echo Bruce Perry - is strong.

However, in 2004, groundbreaking research revealed a new finding and a new lens with which to view this issue.  When babies of depressed mothers were divided into groups according to feeding, the breastfed babies of depressed mothers were protected - via the breastfeeding relationship - from many of the negative effects of depression that the non-breastfed group succumbed to.  Specifically, when electroencephalographic activity was measured, breastfed infants with depressed mothers had left frontal brain activity patterns similar to those obtained from infants with non-depressed mothers. The formula-fed infants whose mothers were depressed showed deficits indicated by less left frontal brain activity.  The conclusion?  Breastfeeding can attenuate some of the negative psychological and physiological effects experienced by infants of depressed mothers.

The benefits don’t just exist for the baby either.  Two studies in 2005 and one in 2006 showed conclusive advantages for breastfeeding mothers, too.  Despite some common beliefs that breastfeeding is exhausting, grueling or the more difficult choice for mothers to make, data suggests that breastfeeding boosts the psychobiological picture for women in a strongly positive way.  Breastfeeding mothers have lower perceived levels of stress (despite equal numbers of stressful events), lower rates of depression, lower levels of anger and more positive feelings about life, all measured by mood state profiles as well as serum prolactin, plasma ACTH and cortisol levels.  Breastfeeding appears to confer psychoneuroimmunological benefits to mothers through regulation of the HPA axis and prolactin regulation.  And breastfeeding increases the effectiveness of innate and specific immune defenses in mothers, making them less susceptible to disease and illness, thus strengthening their overall coping.

Does this mean that all depressed women should be forced to breastfeed or that depressed women who use formula should be made to feel guilty?  Absolutely not.  What it does mean is that we now have more knowledge about how to protect babies and safeguard mothers simultaneously.  And this knowledge comes not from a special source, an expensive programme or a brand new technique, but from the simple yet profound art of breastfeeding.  We can also use this information to extrapolate meaning for non-breastfeeding mothers.  These findings mirror past research that indicates that mothers who are able to interact and play with their infants, despite feeling depressed, also protect their infants’ brains.  Hence it seems that breastfeeding forms the core of positive, nurturing interaction, something we should be supporting all new mothers to learn to do.  As health professionals and parents, medical emissaries and political advocates, we can now educate our clients and ourselves about this potentially awesome aspect of the mother-baby relationship.  By doing so, we can perhaps give the support and encouragement that new and vulnerable mothers need to meet their babies’ needs while also building their own competency as mothers and mentally healthy adults.

Sometimes the answers lie right under our noses.  And in this case, they literally do.

 

 

References:

Jones, N. A., B. A. McFall, and M. A. Diego. Patterns of brain electrical activity in infants of depressed mothers who breastfeed and bottle feed: The mediating role of infant temperament. Biological Psychology  2004; 67:103-24.

Groer, M.W. Differences between exclusive breastfeeders, formula-feeders, and controls: a study of stress, mood, and endocrine variables. Biological Research Nursing 2005 Oct;7(2):106-17.

Mezzacappa ES, Katlin ES. Breast-feeding is associated with reduced perceived stress and negative mood in mothers. Health Psychology 2002 Mar;21(2):187-93

Groer MW, Davis MW. Cytokines, infections, stress, and dysphoric moods in breastfeeders and formula feeders.  Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecological Neonatal Nursing 2006 Sep-Oct;35(5):599-607.

Groer MW, Davis MW, Smith K, Casey K, Kramer V, Bukovsky E. Immunity, inflammation and infection in post-partum breast and formula feeders. American Journal of Reproductive Immunology 2005 Oct;54(4):222-31.

O’Hara, M., D. Neunaber, and E. Zekowski. Prospective study of postpartum depression: Prevalence, course, and predictive factors. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 1984; 93:158-71.

Lundy, B., N. A. Jones, T. Field et al. Prenatal depression effects on neonates. Infant Behavior and Development 1999; 22:121-37.

Jones, N. A., T. Field, N. A. Fox et al. Newborns of mothers with depressive symptoms are physiologically less developed. Infant Behavior and Development 1998; 21:537-41.

Field, T., M. Diego, J. Dieter et al. Prenatal depression effects on the fetus and the newborn. Infant Behavior and Development 2004; 27:216-29.

Dawson, G., Grofer, L., Hill, D., Panagiotides, H., and Speiker, S. Frontal lobe activity and affective behavior of infants of mothers with depressive symptoms. Child Development, 1992, 63, 725-737.