Connection To Intelligence
Studies have examined whether breastfeeding in infants is associated with higher intelligence later in life. Possible association between breastfeeding and intelligence is not clear. The 2007 review for the AHRQ found "no relationship between breastfeeding in term infants and cognitive performance" and in 2006, a prospective cohort study, sibling pairs analysis, and meta-analysis, concluded that "Breast feeding has little or no effect on intelligence in children." The researchers found that "Most of the observed association between breast feeding and cognitive development is the result of confounding by maternal intelligence."
However a 2007 review for the World Health Organization "suggests that breastfeeding is associated with increased cognitive development in childhood." The review also states that "The issue remains of whether the association is related to the properties of breastmilk itself, or whether breastfeeding enhances the bonding between mother and child, and thus contributes to intellectual development." A 2005 study using data on 2,734 sibling pairs from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health "provide persuasive evidence of a causal connection between breastfeeding and intelligence." In another study, cited as "the largest randomized trial ever conducted in the area of human lactation," between 1996 and 1997 maternity hospitals and polyclinics in Belarus were randomized to receive or not receive breastfeeding promotion modeled on the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative. Of 13,889 infants born at these hospitals and polyclinics and followed up in 2002–2005, those who had been born in hospitals and polyclinics receiving breastfeeding promotion had IQs that were 2.9–7.5 points higher (which was significantly higher). Since (among other reasons) a randomized trial should control for maternal IQ, the authors concluded in a 2008 paper that the data "provide strong evidence that prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding improves children's cognitive development."
Read more about this topic: Infant Feeding
Famous quotes containing the words connection to, connection and/or intelligence:
“It may comfort you to know that if your child reaches the age of eleven or twelve and you have a good bond or relationship, no matter how dramatic adolescence becomes, you children will probably turn out all right and want some form of connection to you in adulthood.”
—Charlotte Davis Kasl (20th century)
“Self-expression is not enough; experiment is not enough; the recording of special moments or cases is not enough. All of the arts have broken faith or lost connection with their origin and function. They have ceased to be concerned with the legitimate and permanent material of art.”
—Jane Heap (c. 1880–1964)
“If woman alone had suffered under these mistaken traditions [of women’s subordination], if she could have borne the evil by herself, it would have been less pitiful, but her brother man, in the laws he created and ignorantly worshipped, has suffered with her. He has lost her highest help; he has crippled the intelligence he needed; he has belittled the very source of his own being and dwarfed the image of his Maker.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)