Breastfeeding Boosts Child’s Ability to Climb the Social Ladder

An interesting study focusing on the importance of breastfeeding suggests that breastfeeding boosts the ability of children to climb the social ladder and lowers the risk of downward mobility, reports Nature World News.

The researchers base their findings on changes in the social class of two sets of people - a group of 17,419 born in 1958 and  the other of 16,771 people who were born in 1970. The mothers were questioned on their breast feeding history if any.

Later the researchers compared the social class of the children when they were 10-11 years old and compared it with their social class when they were adults of around 33-34. Along with this the researchers also included scores on cognitive development and stress that was assessed through tests when they were 10-11 years old.

They had categorised the social class on a four point scale varying from unskilled, semi skilled, manual and professional/managerial.

On comparing the number of children that were breastfed in the two groups, they noticed that fewer children were breastfed in 1970 when compared to those born in 1958. Nearly 68 percent of the mothers claimed to have breastfed their children in 1958 and just 36 percent mothers breastfed their kids in 1970.

On analyzing the data the researchers noticed that breastfed babies (24 per cent higher odds) were more likely to have higher social status when compared to kids who were bottle fed.  In both the groups those who were breast fed were 20 percent less likely to have a downward mobility and their cognitive skills were high and stress levels were low.

The study did not find how breast-feeding helped the babies gain upward social mobility. It could be either due to nutrients in the breast milk or due to the mother-child bonding during early life.

"The evidence suggests that breastfeeding confers a range of long-term health, developmental, and behavioural advantages to children, which persist into adulthood," said authors.

"Perhaps the combination of physical contact and the most appropriate nutrients required for growth and brain development is implicated in the better neurocognitive and adult outcomes of breastfed infants," they conclude.

This study was published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.