Breast-fed kids smarter: Study

The effect of breastfeeding on brain development and intelligence has long been a hotly debated topic.

“Our study provides the strongest evidence to date that prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding makes kids smarter,” said Dr. Michael Kramer, a Professor of Pediatrics and of Epidemiology & Biostatistics in the McGill University Faculty of Medicine and lead investigator of the study.

In the study published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry, Dr Kramer reports the results from following the same group of 14,000 children for six-and-a-half year.

Kramer and his colleagues evaluated the children in 31 Belarusian hospitals and clinics. The children’s cognitive ability was assessed by IQ tests administered by the children’s pediatricians and by their teachers’ ratings of their academic performance in reading, writing, mathematics and other subjects.

Both sets of measures were significantly higher in the group randomised to the breastfeeding promotion intervention, the report said.