My wife is breast feeding, and has been for eleven months. We thought this was supposed to keep the baby from getting sick, or at least not as sick. Also, we thought this would keep her from getting ear infections. NOT!
Bottles continuously flow, where as the breast does not.
It is certainly the most important gift a mother can give her child.
Breast feeding does indeed reduce, (note not eliminate), the incidence of infection.
The first feedings from the colostrum, contain lymphocytes and highly active gamma globulins from an immunological standpoint. These feedings convey passive immunity to the infant and help train the infants immune system correctly. The gut is quite porous to large molecules in the first months of life, and the longer foreign proteins from food products are delayed the better, up to a year.
Gamma globulins are transferred readily during the first year of life. However the most active feedings from an Immunological stand point are the first colostrum feedings.
The eccentric Doyen of pediatrics at Guys hospital used to say, "breast milk has the right ingredients, at the right temperature, and comes in a beautiful container!"
I think I understand from your comments that you child has been prone to ear infections.
As far as ear infections in the first year of life is concerned that is unusual.
My first comment is to make sure they really are ear infections. Unfortunately there is a class of medic out there, that can't distinguish the intense light reflex of the infants ear drum from infection.
If ear infections really are occurring in the first year of life it is usually due to patulous eustachian tubes associated with certain craniofacial characteristics. The problem is that the tubes are relatively horizontal and the sphincter allows reflux of nasal material into the ears. This problem is almost always self limiting, and the child can be tidied over with prophylactic antibiotics after the condition is definitively diagnosed.
The recurrent ear infections, that plague so many children from about 18 months to seven years of age, are due to the opposite problem of failure of the eustachian tubes to open, creating closed spaces in the middle ear cavities.
For chronically recurrent cases the placing of tubes or grommets to ventilate the middle ear cavity, in the tympanic membrane to tide the child through the difficult years is useful.
