A large and significant study involving 31 maternities and clinics in the Republic of Belarus, with over 17,000 mother-infant pairs showed that increased duration and exclusivity of breastfeeding had a striking impact in reducing an infant's risk of gastrointestinal disease and atopic eczema. The study was mainly funded by Canada and led by a team of Canadian researchers in partnership with a team from Belarus.

The cluster-randomized trial set out to determine if efforts to promote breastfeeding would impact on the duration and exclusivity of breastfeeding as well as gastrointestinal, respiratory infection and atopic eczema. Infants were followed for 1 year with 96.7 per cent completing the study.

The randomly assigned test sites received interventions based on the Ten Steps of the Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative, while the control sites continued the usual routine infant feeding practices.

Infant and mothers receiving the intervention programming were more likely to exclusively breastfeed for a longer period of time. More infants were breastfeeding at 12 months (19.7% vs. 11.4%); more infants were exclusively breastfeeding at 3 months (43.3% vs. 6.4%) and at 6 months (7.9% vs. 0.6%); and had a 40 per cent lower risk of developing gastrointestinal infections and a 46 per cent lower risk of developing atopic eczema. No significant reduction in respiratory infections was noted.

Notably, this study, with continuous follow-up of the children, can provide information of breastfeeding impact on longer-term health indicators such as obesity and cognitive development.