Breastfeeding produces not only healthier babies but also brighter children, according to a study. As little as four weeks of breastfeeding for a new-born infant has a "positive and significant effect" on brain development, it finds, right up to secondary school and beyond.
Children who had been breastfed consistently outperformed their formula-fed peers at ages five, seven, 11 and 14 in tests of reading, writing and mathematics, researchers from the University of Oxford and the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex found.
The NHS already recommends that babies should be breastfed rather than given formula for their first six months, but Britain has one of the world's lowest rates of breastfeeding. Only 35% of UK infants are exclusively breastfed at one week old, 21% at six weeks, 7% at four months and just 3% at six months.
One of the paper's co-authors, Maria Iacovou, a social scientist at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, said that while the health benefits of breast milk were widely known and understood, it had been less clear to what extent there were benefits for cognitive development.
"The issue was that while it looked as though breast feeding did have an impact on cognitive development, no one knew if that was just because the type of mother more likely to breastfeed in the first place was more likely to nurture brighter children, or whether there was a true causal link," she said.
The ISER study – a working paper that will be peer-reviewed at a later date – compared breastmilk-fed children with formula-fed "twins", children who were equivalent in all other observable respects. "We did find there is a link [between breast milk and cognitive development]," said Iacovou. "Breast milk has well-known health benefits and now we can say there are clear benefits for children's brains as well."
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