Breastfeeding is often encouraged for women with multiple sclerosis. It's not only good nutrition for the baby, studies have suggested it may protect the mother against a relapse of the disease. A study published Wednesday casts doubt on that assertion, however. Researchers followed 298 women with multiple sclerosis for one year after delivery. About one-third of the women breast-fed their babies for at least two months and the remaining did not breastfeed or only did so for a very short time. Researchers found no protective effect for breastfeeding. It did not worsen the relapse rate, either. They did find that women who had relapses during pregnancy were more than twice as likely to have a relapse in the postpartum period compared with women who remained healthy during pregnancy. It could be that those women are more likely to breastfeed their babies.
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