Breast-feeding probably doesn’t stave off multiple sclerosis relapse

Breast-feeding is often encouraged for women with multiple sclerosis. It’s not only good nutrition for the baby, studies have suggested it may protect the mother against a relapse of the disease.

A study published Wednesday casts doubt on that assertion, however. Researchers followed 298 women with multiple sclerosis for one year after delivery. About one-third of the women breast-fed their babies for at least two months and the remaining did not breast-feed or only did so for a very short time.

Researchers found no protective effect for breast-feeding. It did not worsen the relapse rate, either. They did find that women who had relapses during pregnancy were more than twice as likely to have a relapse in the postpartum period compared with women who remained healthy during pregnancy. It could be that those women are more likely to breast-feed their babies.

The study appears in the journal Neurology.

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