New Study: Breast-fed children are smarter
By Asta Svedkauskaite | 224 views | 
Be the first to comment on this article! »Categories: Children, Children's Health, Parenting
A recent study, done by an international team of researchers, provides some of the best evidence to date that breast-feeding can make children smarter. The longitudinal study revealed that babies in the breast-fed (and encouraged) group scored significantly higher in the reading, writing, math and other subjects at school than those who were formula-fed or whose mothers were not encouraged to breast feed during the first 6 months of birth.
These results give a new impetus for the current moms and moms-to-be to consider breast feeding as it not only provides great health benefits but also raises their kids’ IQ. The researchers seemingly attribute the latter to the bonding between the mother and the baby. Although it remains speculative.
Previous studies had indicated brain development and intelligence benefits for breast-fed children, but it was not clear whether it was the breast-feeding that did it, or that mothers who prefer to breast-feed their babies may differ from those who do not.
To eliminate the confusion, this study was designed to randomly assign babies to two groups regardless of the mothers’ characteristics.
“Mothers who breast-feed or those who breast-feed longer or most exclusively are different from the mothers who don’t,” Dr. Michael Kramer of McGill University in Montreal and the Montreal Children’s Hospital said in a telephone interview.
“They tend to be smarter. They tend to be more invested in their babies. They tend to interact with them more closely. They may be the kind of mothers who read to their kids more, who spend more time with their kids, who play with them more,” added Kramer, who led the study published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.
You can read full article at reuters.com: Breast-fed children found smarter.
Tags: Breast Feeding, Children, Development, IQ, Mother, Study
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