Breastfeeding WON’T make your baby more intelligent after all

IT nourishes babies, boosts their immune system and even allows mothers to bond with their newborn.

But according to scientists, there’s one thing breastfeeding can’t do – make your child more intelligent.

A study has found that, far from transforming a baby into a future Einstein, breastfeeding 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 breastfed children have higher IQs.

For this latest study, researchers from Goldsmiths, University of London, monitored both breastfed and bottle-fed children until the age of 16 and assessed their IQs throughout. At the end of the research, after their mothers’ ages and social status was 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 around the age of seven.

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 breastfeeding are very unlikely to be at the core of something as big and 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.

At each age the twins completed at least two tests, including web-based, phone-based and parent-administered tests.

Of the youngsters monitored, 62 per cent were breastfed in early life for an average of four months, while the remaining 38 per cent 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 IQ’s accord- ingly, to ensure fair results. The scientists expected that breastfed 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 – leading them to conclude that there are little or no benefits of breastfeeding for cognitive development.

Despite the findings, Dr von Stumm urged new mothers not to assume that breastfeeding had no benefits at all.

But she added: ‘Being bottlefed as an infant won’t cost your child a chance at a university degree later in life.’

‘Big and complex’