New Study Supports Link between Breastfeeding and IQ

Researchers just released results from a study of 14,000 children over the course of six-and-a-half years (the abstract claims it’s the largest randomized trial ever conducted in human lactation!) The study attempted to determine whether any associated link between breastfeeding and IQ is due to breastfeeding alone, or the differences between mothers who choose to breastfeed and mothers who formula-feed. To take out the differences between mothers, the 14,000 mother-baby pairs were divided randomly into two different groups, one of which was given encouragement to breastfeed and one of which was not. The encouragement group was more likely to breastfeed and to do so exclusively. Children in the encouragement group scored 5% higher on IQ tests and did better academically. Researchers say what is still unclear is how exactly breastfeeding benefits intelligence. MSNBC quotes researcher Dr. Michael Kramer from McGill University in Montreal, Canada:

“It could even be that because breast-feeding takes longer, the mother is interacting more with the baby, talking with the baby, soothing the baby,” he said. “It could be an emotional thing. It could be a physical thing. Or it could be a hormone or something else in the milk that’s absorbed by the baby.”

See the abstract from the Journal of General Psychiatry for more on the strong evidence that prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding improves cognitive development.

(Thanks to reader Kelley for the tip on this story!)