Breast-feeding and alcoholism: The Trotter hypothesis

Objective: The authors' goal was to determine whether early termination of breast-feeding contributes to later alcohol dependence, as proposed more th an 200 years ago by the British physician Thomas Trotter. Method: In 1959-1 961, a multiple-specialty group of physicians studied 9,182 consecutive del iveries in a Danish hospital, obtaining data about prepartum and postpartum variables. The present study concentrates on perinatal variables obtained from 200 of the original babies who participated in a 30-year high-risk fol low-up study of the antecedents of alcoholism. Results: Of the 27 men who w ere diagnosed as alcohol dependent at age 30, 13 (48%) came from the group weaned from the breast before the age of 3 weeks; only 33 (19%) of the 173 non-alcohol-dependent subjects came from the early weaning group. When chal lenged by other perinatal variables in a multiple regression analysis, earl y weaning significantly contributed to the prediction of the severity of al coholism at age 30. Conclusions: The data support the hypothesis that early weaning may be associated with a greater risk of alcohol dependence later in life.