Lipid Profile of Full-term Infants on Different Feeding Regimen: a Comparative Study

Infant and young child feeding is critical for their health and survival. Based on well-established evidence, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's fund (UNICEF) recommend that mothers put newborns to the breast within one hour of birth, breastfeed infants exclusively for the first six months and continue to breastfeed for two years and beyond, together with nutritionally adequate, safe, age-appropriate, responsive feeding of solid, semi-solid and soft food starting in the sixth month.

For the first six months of life, breast milk alone is the ideal nourishment, providing all of the nutrients including minerals and fat soluble vitamins, an infant needs, meaning that no other liquid or food is needed.

In addition to providing a generally adequate nutrient supply that support normal growth and development , breastfeeding has been linked to multiple other advantages including a reduced risk of infection and long-term benefits for the risk of obesity, type II diabetes mellitus, blood pressure and better performance in intelligence tests.

The macro-nutrient composition of human milk varies within mothers according to nutritional status and across lactation. The mean macro-nutrient composition of mature, term milk is estimated to be approximately 0.9 to 1.2 gm/dl for proteins, 3.2 to 3.6 gm/dl for fats and 6.7 to 7.8 gm/dl for lactose.

There have been several systematic reviews supporting the positive effects of breastfeeding on cardiovascular risk factors, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes (DMII), hypertension. Breastfeeding also reduces plasma levels of total cholesterol (TC) and low density lipoprotein (LDL).