Brilliant Child? Must Have Been Breastfed
So, after all the hype, it looks like breast-feeding does provide advantages to babies. I probably sound bitter because, as I needed to have emergency surgery less than a week after my son was born, I was just never able to do it. (He also had a problem latching on!) According to newswise.com, a new study has found that "b reastfeeding longer is associated with better receptive language at 3 years of age and verbal and nonverbal intelligence at age 7 years." While the study showed evidence that "supports the relationship between breastfeeding and health benefits in infancy," it was less certain if it leads to better cognitive development, however. Women who breastfed the longest in the study had 3-year-olds who scored higher on a picture vocabulary test, and at 7 years, scored higher on the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test, but the breast-feeding duration was not associated with other scores. Babies that were breastfed for six months did the best. So w...