Breast Milk Is Best For Baby's IQ,
Study Says
POOR TEST SCORES, LESS NURSING LINKED
By MARC KAUFMAN The Washington Post
Published: May 8, 2002
Infants breast-fed for nine months grew up to be significantly more intelligent than infants breast-fed for one month or less, according to a
new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Results from the study of more than 3,000 young men and women from Copenhagen, Denmark, strongly support the long suggested, but never proven,
conclusion that the act of breast-feeding not only makes babies healthier, but smarter, too.
"We are really quite certain that what we are seeing here is the effect of the duration of breast-feeding on an individual's intelligence,
" said June Machover Reinisch of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, an author of the study. "The
question that remains is what exactly is the aspect of breast-feeding that results in the greater intelligence."
"The evidence is growing that breast-feeding is among the most important lifelong benefits a mother can give to her child," she said.
Reinisch said the study, the first to measure the effects of breast-feeding well beyond childhood, found that those who scored lowest in
intelligence tests were disproportionately in the group that was breast-fed one month or less.
Although public health officials, and even the infant formula industry, recommend breast-feeding as the best way to nourish an infant for the
first six to 12 months, most American babies are still bottle-fed during much of their infancy.
The JAMA findings, and related conclusions about the health and development benefits of breast-feeding, will add to the active debate about
how to encourage breast-feeding - which is least common among minority and poorer women.
The research, funded primarily by the National Institutes of Health, used two groups of Danish men and women who had been studied since their
mothers were pregnant between 1959 and 1961. When the children were 1 year old, the mothers were questioned about how long they breast-fed
their babies.
One group of 973 was given a Wechsler IQ test, and the other sample of 2,280 men was given intelligence tests when they entered the Danish
military. In both groups, those breast-fed nine months scored significantly higher than those breast-fed for less than one month.
This article originally appeared in the Tampa Tribune May 8, 2002
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