They have more melatonin

Jun 20, 2007 10:11 GMT  ·  By

There is no doubt that breastfeeding is the best food for babies (except in some cases, like infections in moms, especially with HIV, which can increase the risk of virus transmission from mother to offspring). Despite the fact that in many countries artificial feeding is linked with a greater mortality rate caused by diarrhea in new-born babies, , many regard artificial feeding to be acceptable, in case there is clean water.

The exact composition of breast milk varies from day to day, and even from hour to hour, depending on both the manner in which the baby nurses and the mother's food consumption and environment, so the ratio of water to fat fluctuates, but the mom's milk also has immune and anti-allergic properties. Famed for its restorative powers, it now appears that laughter, too, booms the qualities of the breast milk to fight skin allergies.

A new research led by Hajime Kimata at the Moriguchi-Keijinkai Hospital in Osaka, Japan, found that breastfed babies with eczema displayed milder symptoms when their mothers laughed hours before feeding them. The breastfeeding mothers watched either a feature length Charlie Chaplin movie or bland footage of weather information, and samples of their breast milk were taken and analyzed at regular intervals afterwards.

After two milk feeds, Kimata also assessed their babies' allergic reactions to dust mites and latex. In the case of babies whose mothers had laughed, the children presented significantly decreased reactions. All infants involved in the research and some of the mothers had mild atopic eczema (the most common form).

Kimata also encountered much higher quantities of melatonin in the milk of the mothers that experienced laughing sessions. This hormone, secreted by the brain, is linked with relaxation, circadian cycle and boosted activity of the immune system and whose levels are lower in people with eczema (which is triggered by a depressed immune activity).

"It would be good to investigate if 15 minutes of laughter a day can reduce allergies in mothers and infants in the long term," said Michael Miller of the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, who investigates the laughter's effect on heart disease.