海角社区 study links breastfeeding to increased intelligence
Prolonged and exclusive nursing improves children鈥檚 cognitive development
The largest randomized study of breastfeeding ever conducted reports that breastfeeding raises children鈥檚 IQs and improves their academic performance, a 海角社区 researcher and his team have found.
In an article titled, Breastfeeding and Child Cognitive Development, published in the current issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, Dr. Michael S. Kramer, Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health (IHDCYH), reports the results from following the same group of 14,000 children for 6.5 years.
"Our study provides the strongest evidence to date that prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding makes kids smarter," said Kramer, a Professor of Pediatrics and of Epidemiology & Biostatistics in the 海角社区 Faculty of Medicine and lead investigator in the study.
Kramer and his colleagues evaluated the children in 31 Belarusian hospitals and clinics. Half the mothers were exposed to an intervention that encouraged prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding. The remaining half continued their usual maternity hospital and outpatient pediatric care and follow-up. This allowed the researchers to measure the effect of breastfeeding on the children鈥檚 cognitive development without the results being biased by differences in factors such as the mother鈥檚 intelligence or her way of interacting with her baby.
The children鈥檚 cognitive ability was assessed by IQ tests administered by the children鈥檚 pediatricians and by their teachers鈥� ratings of their academic performance in reading, writing, mathematics and other subjects. Both sets of measures were significantly higher in the group randomized to the breastfeeding promotion intervention.
"The effect of breastfeeding on brain development and intelligence has long been a popular and hotly debated topic,鈥� says Dr. Kramer. "While most studies have been based on association, however, we can now make a causal inference between breastfeeding and intelligence 鈥� because of the randomized design of our study.鈥�
The study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
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