Breastfeeding Can Boost Your Baby's Brain Power

Children who were breast-fed exclusively for the first three months of life or longer scored nearly six points higher on IQ tests at the age of 6 than children who weren't breast-fed exclusively, a new study has found.

The finding buttresses previous research that has suggested that children and adults who were breast-fed as infants scored better on IQ tests and other measures of cognitive development, such as thinking, learning and memory, the study authors said.

"Long and exclusive breast-feeding makes kids smarter," said lead researcher Dr. Michael S. Kramer, of McGill University and the Montreal Children's Hospital, in Canada.

Why breast-feeding might increase cognitive skills isn't clear, Kramer said. "It could be something in the milk, or it could be the physical contact between the mother and the baby," he said. "It could be the way the mother interacts with the baby during breast-feeding -- there is no way to know."

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[jrb35]

Breastfeeding can boost the brain power of grown men too. It's never too late/

[Nyk]

This is stated all wrong. Babies are supposed to eat breastmilk. Therefore breastmilk is the norm. Therefore breastmilk does not make babies smarter, it make them normal. Therefore formula (artificial baby milk) makes them dumber.

[od]

No where in the article, nor in the published study does it mention formula. Try reading the article before posting your biased ASSUMTIONS.

[od]

"Kramer's group randomly assigned 7,108 infants in Belarus to exclusive breast-feeding; another 6,781 infants received the usual practice of breast-feeding plus other foods."

Plus other foods? Who feeds "other foods" to a one-three month old baby?

And 13,000 new mothers allowed someone to "randomly" decide what they would feed their newborns?

Not sure what kind of a "study" this was, but it was not a formula vs. breastfeeding study, so all the breast nazis can sit down.

[Nyk]

Od wrote: "Plus other foods? Who feeds "other foods" to a one-three month old baby?"

Other foods = artificial baby milk = formula, most likely

[mamacat]

I don't know if breast milk makes the babies smarter, but it sure makes the mothers smarter. I have read a report that mothers who breast feed also have a lower incidence of breast cancer than those who don't.

[dora_rice]

Bonny and Clyde were breast fed I am sure. At that time Nestles wasn't available. So there goes that theory. That babies are smarter when being breast fed. Genes and environment and opportunity create a childs character and intelligence.

[bouyant]

If you had been breastfed you might have been able to critically analyze this article and respond logically.