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Human Milk and Breast Feeding for Optimal Mental Development¹

Instituto de Nutrición y Tecnología de los Alimentos (INTA), Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile

Human milk has been characterized as the optimal food for human growth and development because of its nutritional, antiinfective and biological properties. Research conducted over the past decades provides further evidence on the uniqueness of human milk feeding for optimal brain development. The recognition of specific functions for the long chain essential fatty acids present in human milk as key components of neural membranes necessary for optimal brain development has provided a biological basis for this phenomenon. In addition the act of breast feeding provides unique mother-infant interactions opportunities that may have important implications for infant growth and development. These findings may have special relevance to populations in developing countries because this provides yet other very strong reasons to favor human milk feeding.

KEY WORDS: • human milk • breast feeding • essential fatty acids • mental development • infancy

¹ Prepared for the International Dietary Energy Consultative Group (IDECG) Task Force workshop on malnutrition and behavior at the University of California, Davis, CA, December 6–10, 1993. This workshop was supported by IDECG, the Nestlé Foundation, Kraft Foods and the International Union for Nutritional Science. Guest editor for this supplement was Ernesto Pollitt, Department of Pediatrics, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616.

² To whom correspondence should be addressed: INTA University of Chile, Casilla 138-11, Santiago, Chile.