NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Breastfeeding, both exclusive and partial, appears to lower the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), according to a report in the March issue of Pediatrics.

Based on the findings, Dr. M. M. Vennemann, from the University of Munster, Germany, and colleagues recommend that SIDS risk-reduction messages encourage women to breastfeed through 6 months of age.

At present, some countries include breastfeeding recommendations in their SIDS prevention campaigns, while others do not, the authors point out. The goal of the current study was to confirm that breastfeeding is, in fact, tied to a reduced risk of SIDS.

The German Study of Sudden Infant Death (GeSID) included 333 infants who died of SIDS and 998 age-matched controls.

At 2 weeks of age, 83% of controls were being breastfed compared to only 50% of SIDS infants. At 1 month of age, corresponding rates were 72% versus 40%.

Exclusive breastfeeding at 1 month cut the risk of SIDS in half. Partial breastfeeding at this point was also tied to a reduced risk, although it did not reach statistical significance on multivariate analysis.

Breastfeeding, both exclusive and partial, in the last month of life or before the interview, decreased the risk of SIDS, with an adjusted odds ratio of 0.29.

These findings add “to the body of evidence showing that breastfeeding reduces the risk of SIDS, and that this protection continues as long as the infant is breastfed,” the investigators conclude.