From : Dr Janine Stockdale, Research Fellow at the Royal College of Midwives
Subject : Breastfeeding and babies’ behaviour

There is a growing mountain of evidence about the many benefits of breastfeeding for mother and baby. This is a small study and more research is needed. 

It cannot be presumed that physical signalling by the baby automatically means it is hungry; other evidence suggests that babies engage in sucking behaviour called non-nutritive sucking. 

As breastfeeding mothers are often advised not to use a soother while their baby is learning to breastfeed, this means there is a need to look at babies’ behaviours, taking into consideration whether or not a soother was introduced. Factoring this type of information into the research would enable us to understand more about the suggested differences between the behaviours of breastfed and bottle-fed babies.

The evidence needs to be seen in a greater context before we start to draw conclusions on this research and we should continue to do all we can to promote and increase the rates of breastfeeding.