Besides decreasing women’s risk of developing breast cancer,
breast-feeding was also found to make children significantly smarter, improving
their abilities to read and write, Canadian research reveals.
Dr. Michael S. Kramer, of McGill
University and the Montreal Children’s
Hospital in Canada and his colleagues
randomly assigned 7,108 infants in Belarus to exclusive breast-feeding
while another 6,781 infants received the usual practice of breastfeeding plus
other foods.
By the time the kids reached 6.5 years, they were given a
standard IQ test, which showed that exclusively breast-fed children scored, on
average, 7.5 points higher in verbal intelligence, 2.9 points higher in
nonverbal intelligence and 5.9 points higher in overall intelligence.
Additionally, teachers also rated these children as having better
academic performance in both reading and writing compared with children who
weren’t breast-fed exclusively.
“Mothers who breast-feed or those who breast-feed longer or
most exclusively are different from the mothers who don't. 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. Our study
provides the strongest evidence to date that prolonged and exclusive breast-feeding
makes kids smarter,” Dr. Kramer said, as quoted by Reuters.
Other experts think that nutrients in mother’s milk (which are
not found in any other food) seem to contribute to brain development and
increased IQ. Mother’s milk appears to contain certain amino acids, not found
in baby formula, which include omega three fatty acids and DHA (Docosahexaenoic
acid) that are very important for brain’s development.
“I'm not surprised because many studies have had similar results. It's
wonderful to have this very large study to confirm what we've known or thought
for a long time,” said Dr. Ruth Lawrence, a professor of pediatrics at the
University of Rochester School of Medicine, and a member of the American
Academy of Pediatrics executive committee section on breast-feeding, the
Washington Post reports.
New mothers should breast-feed their babies exclusively for
the first six months of their life and continue breast-feeding with baby food
as a supplement until at least the baby’s first birthday, the American Academy
of Pediatrics and the American
College of Obstetricians
and Gynecologists recommend. The World Health Organization and the American Academy of Family Physicians support the
same thing.
A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention found that more than three quarters of U.S. mothers breast-feed their
babies, the highest rate in at least two decades. This could highly contribute to
the number of kids having good scores at IQ tests in the future and not only,
as breast-feeding was also found to protect against respiratory infections,
obesity, diabetes and even cancer.
