Is the Macronutrient Intake of Formula-Fed Infants Greater Than Breast-Fed Infants in Early Infancy?

Table 1

Checklist for reporting systemic reviews, using the meta-analysis of observational studies in epidemiology [17].

Background: definition of the problem	(i) Limited information on the macronutrient and energy content of human breast milk; during the first weeks of life
	(ii) Hypothesized infant formula may be too energy dense for infants during the first weeks; of life
Search strategy	(i) Searched Medline database from inception until early 2011
	(ii) Hand-search relevant journals and references from identified studies
	(iii) Contact authors if additional information was needed to complete meta-analysis above; what was published*
Inclusion and exclusion criteria	(i) Study included if healthy, term, singleton infants reporting values during the first month; of life were reported
	(ii) Breast milk and infant formula daily intake values analyzed were for either exclusively; breast-fed or formula-fed infants, respectively
	(iii) Only studies which reported new data were included, and duplicate publications (e.g., in reviews) were excluded
Methods	(i) Only studies that used valid methods were included, but no formal assessment of quality; of included studies was completed
Results	(i) Give results of individual studies (in tables) and group estimates (in tables and text)
	(ii) Essential details of methodology and sample for each study included (in tables)
Discussion/conclusion	(i) Give generalization of the conclusions
	(ii) Need for further research

*All data was based on published studies with the exception of one dataset on intake of formula-fed infants [18].