Breast-feeding has no bearing on IQ – study
IT NOURISHES babies, boosts their immune system and even allows mothers to bond with their newborn. But according to scientists, there’s one thing breast-feeding can’t do – make your child more intelligent.
A study has found that, far from transforming a baby into a future Einstein, breast-feeding has no benefit over bottles when it comes to a child’s IQ. In fact, experts concluded that long-term factors such as family background had a much bigger impact on children’s intelligence.
This is despite previous experiments, which suggested breast-fed children have higher IQs.
For this latest study, researchers from Goldsmiths, University of London, monitored breast-fed and bottle-fed children until the age of 16 months, and assessed their IQs throughout. At the end of the research, after their mothers’ ages and social status were factored in, both sets of children had an average IQ of 100.
Girls did slightly better in early tests, scoring an average of five points higher, but this had evened out by about the age of seven months.
Dr Sophie von Stumm, who led the study, said: “Children – and adults – differ in their cognitive abilities, and it is important to identify factors that give rise to these differences.
“But comparatively small events like breast-feeding are very unlikely to be at the core of something as big and
WAXA complex as children’s differences in IQ. Instead, children’s IQ differences are better explained by long-term factors, for example, family background and their schooling.”
The study analysed 5 791 sets of twins born between 1994 and 1996, testing their intelligence nine times between the ages of two and 16 months.
At each age the twins completed at least two tests, including web-based, phone-based and parent-administered tests.
Of the youngsters monitored, 62 percent were breast-fed in early life for an average of four months, while the remaining 38 percent were bottle-fed. The education and occupation of the children’s parents were recorded at the start and end of the research period.
The data was combined with the mothers’ ages at the time of birth, and were used to adjust the children’s IQs accordingly, to ensure fair results. The scientists expected that breast-fed infants would initially score higher on the tests. This is because previous research has suggested that compounds found in breast milk – called polyunsaturated fatty acids – may help the development of the brain.
They also anticipated that any differences would have no long term impact and that average scores would equal out with age.
However, they discovered both groups had the same average IQ throughout the process. – Daily Mail