Does breastfeeding result in smarter children? A closer look

摘要

What mother wouldn't want a few extra intelligence quotient (IQ) points for her child? For years, there has been a growing body of evidence showing that breastfeeding is associated with improved cognitive skills in children. However, it is not completely clear if breastfeeding actually causes improvements in cognition or if other factors explain the higher cognitive scores of children who were breastfed. For example, some have suggested that this relationship could be attributed to the possibility that women with higher IQs breastfeed for longer than women with lower IQs. The study highlighted in this month's Research Spotlight column tackles this very complex question. Dr Belfort and colleagues in Boston, Massachusetts, evaluated the relationship between breastfeeding duration and exclusivity on measures of childhood cognition at ages 3 and 7.