LEAD PARAGRAPH - ''BREAST is best'' -- that is what health care providers and advocates tell mothers who are making decisions about how to feed their newborns.

What is usually meant by that statement is this: compared with bottle feeding, breast-feeding offers incomparable benefits to children, even to those fed that way for a relatively short time. Among the benefits are reduced risks of asthma, lymphoma, sudden infant death syndrome, meningitis, pneumonia, inflammatory bowel disease, allergies, infections, diarrhea and colds. In a majority of studies, breast-fed children have I.Q.'s 3 to 10 points higher than children who are nursed by the bottle.
 

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