Maternal eating, infant feeding, and growth

Article Outline

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Clinicians generally focus on weight gain of infants to assess the infants feeding and nutritional status. In this issue of The Journal, Micali et al prospectively evaluated maternal/infant feeding behaviors for a population of women and then focused on women with eating disorders and other psychiatric disorders. They found that women with eating disorders—anorexia nervosa and bulimia—were more likely to breastfeed their infants, but were also more likely to have difficulties feeding those infants than healthy women. The report makes the point that abnormal maternal eating behavior is a red flag for feeding difficulties for the infant.