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The problem
Intervention: Breastfeeding in infancy (any duration, and specifically ≥6 months or exclusive breastfeeding for 3-5 months)
Who it was tested with: 9-year-old children (N=8,006) in the Growing Up in Ireland Infant Cohort Study.
Children or communities are compared with a group that did not receive the intervention, or followed over years. This is the design that best separates what the intervention did from everything else that changed.
"Multiple logistic regression was used to generate adjusted odds ratios (aOR) for associations between breastfeeding and allergic diseases"; the study is a prospective cohort with temporal sequence (breastfeeding exposure measured first, outcomes assessed years later) and comparison groups (ever vs. never breastfed), meeting experimental design criteria, though it remains observational rather than randomised.
Reliance on maternal self-report of feeding practices (reported at nine months) and allergic disease diagnoses (at age nine) rather than clinical assessment. Reverse causality or confounding cannot be entirely ruled out despite regression adjustment. Response rate 72% may introduce selection bias.
Across countries and designs
1 study · 1 country
