Abstract

Introduction.  Breastfeeding provides a protective effect against respiratory infections, mainly of the upper airway; therefore, it is necessary to determine whether replacing the bottle affect incidence of respiratory infections upper tract.

Method.   Using the methodology of evidence based clinical practice, and according to the acronym PICO, the question was raised:¿ in the lower infant does the use of bottle feeding compared to exclusive breastfeeding increases the risk of infections the upper airways? a search was conducted of articles in the database PubMed, after establishing the criteria for inclusion and exclusion and critically analyze five documents that give answer to the question posed was selected.

Result.  From searching the database Pub Med, 969 articles published was obtained; after debugging the initial results, a total of 25 publications related to clinical studies addressing the relationship between exclusive breastfeeding and the incidence of respiratory infections upper airway in the lower infant was achieved. Finally, five publications that investigated the use of the feeding bottle and its possible association with respiratory infections was achieved. The evaluation of these studies showed that its quality is average. Publications conclude that there is a higher incidence of respiratory infections of upper airway in infants younger infants, in which breastfeeding is not exclusive, but mixed or replaced by the use of a feeding bottle.

Conclusion.  This brief review of literature shows that there is evidence of medium quality that supports the association between feeding bottle use and an increased incidence of upper respiratory infections in the lower infant.

Key words: breast-Feeding; feeding-bottle; lower-infant; respiratory-tract-infection