More than three decades ago, researchers began studying whether infants fed formula instead of breast milk were at higher risk for developing necrotizing enterocolitis than babies fed only breast milk.
Comparisons were made between premature babies fed a mixture of breast milk and formula and babies fed only breast milk. It was found that the babies who received the mixture of breast milk and formula were three times as likely to develop NEC as the breast milk-only babies. Further, the risk went up even higher for babies fed only formula and no breast milk at all.
This bacterial overgrowth can cause infection, which can cause gut perforations, specifically in the small intestine. This often contributes to malnutrition because the infant is unable to absorb nutrients from the small intestine into the bloodstream. The systemic infection combined with a lack of nutrition are two of the primary complications associated with NEC