The Benefits of Breastfeeding: Babies' are Smarter with Mother's Milk

Determining whether breastfeeding is the right option for you and your child may not always be so easy. Several medical complications can often prevent a mother from using her milk as food. And though previous studies have shown that children who are breastfed have higher IQ scores and typically perform better in school, many researchers have been rather uncertain as to why.

Yet researchers at Brigham Young University believe that two parenting skills may be the source of this cognitive boost, including responding properly to the child's emotional cues and reading to the child starting at 9 months of age. Background information from the study notes that these are typically things that breastfeeding mothers do.

"It's really the parenting that makes the difference," said lead study author Ben Gibbs, via a press release. "Breastfeeding matters in others ways, but this actually gives us a better mechanism and can shape our confidence about interventions that promote school readiness."

Based on analysis, the study showed improvements in sensitivity to emotional cues and time reading for children in 2 to 3 months' time worth of brain development by age 4.

"Because these are four-year-olds, a month or two represents a non-trivial chunk of time," Gibbs said, via the release. "And if a child is on the edge of needing special education, even a small boost across some eligibility line could shape a child's educational trajectory."

For the study, the researchers examined a national data set that followed their children from birth to five years of age, noting that the children most at-risk include those who are less likely to receive optimal parenting during early childhood including single moms who are in the labor force or families with less education, in general.

 "This is the luxury of the advantaged," said fellow BYU professor Renata Forste, via the release. "It makes it harder to think about how we promote environments for disadvantaged homes. These things can be learned and they really matter. And being sensitive to kids and reading to kids doesn't have to be done just by the mother."

What do you think?

More information regarding the study can be found via the Journal of Pediatrics.