[What are the epidemiological data concerning parental smoking and breastfeeding?].
Exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months provides important protection against respiratory infections in the newborn's first year of life. But smoking by either parent not only creates excess risk of respiratory illness for the baby, it also plays an important role both in not breastfeeding or in early weaning, thus depriving the infant of the potential protections of receiving mother's milk. Considering this information, three main recommendations can be made: promoting smoking cessation by the mother and also by the father may be a key to successful efforts to encourage breastfeeding; a smoking mother can enhance her chances of successful breastfeeding by avoiding smoking at least 2(1/2) hours prior to each feeding; a smoking father can enhance breastfeeding by avoiding exposing the mother as much as he should avoid exposing the infant to tobacco smoke.
Union Internationale Contre la Tuberculose et les Maladies Respiratoires (UICTMR), 68, boulevard Saint-Michel, 75006 Paris. ksalma@iuatld.org
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D001942:Breast Feeding; D005220:Fathers; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013997:Time Factors