Hi Netters: I just went nomail, but wanted to let people who were already
asleep about this piece that just came out on CNN.
With this and the new AAP guidelines, we should really begin to work on the
issue of getting support in the workplace for breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding and Later Cognitive and Academic
Outcomes
L. John Horwood and David M. Fergusson
Cite for the full report is
http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/full/101/1/e9
Breast milk makes kids brighter, study suggests
January 5, 1998
Web posted at: 11:24 p.m. EST (0424 GMT)
CHICAGO (CNN) -- Children who were breast-fed when they were babies perform
better in school and score higher on standardized math and reading tests,
a new study suggests.
The study, published Monday in the January issue of Pediatrics, was based
on a review of more than 1,000 children born in New Zealand in 1977 and
followed through age 18.
The authors, Professors David M. Fergusson and L. John
Horwood of Christchurch School of Medicine, subscribe to the
theory that fatty acids that are present in breast milk but not in formula
promote lasting brain development.
The authors found that the longer infants were breast-fed, the higher they
scored in evaluations.
Some of the children were breast-fed less than four months, others four to
seven months and some for eight months or more, while others were not
breast-fed at all.
"It is concluded that breast-feeding is associated with small but
detectable increases in child cognitive ability and educational
achievement," said the report.
"These effects are pervasive, being reflected in a range of measures
including standardized tests, teacher ratings and academic outcomes in high
schools," it added.
The breast-fed children in the study tended to have mothers who were older,
better-educated and wealthier. Skeptics say those factors, rather than the
breast milk itself, could explain the findings.
But the authors wrote that they adjusted for those factors.
"This study is wonderful because it has followed these
children through young adulthood and it seems
that it holds true right
into adulthood," said Barbara S. Levine of Cornell
Medical College.
The substance that makes breast-fed babies smarter is believed to be an
omega 3 fatty acid called DHA, found naturally in breast milk but not in
formula sold in the United States.
"It is a very important structural fatty acid for both the brain and the
retina," Levine said. "Babies that are fed DHA in the first year of life
seem to do much better."
The American Academy of Pediatrics, which sponsors the journal Pediatrics,
just last month urged mothers to nurse longer -- for at least one year,
instead of the previously recommended six months -- for numerous reasons,
including the presumed mental benefits.
Lawrence Gartner of the University of Chicago is the chairman of the group
that drew up the new guidelines. He said the study generally supports
current thinking about breast-feeding.
But he noted it's difficult for a study to account for all the social and
educational variables that could also explain the findings.
Medical Correspondent Dr. Steve Salvatore and Reuters
contributed to this report.
At 08:26 PM 1/3/98 -0500, you wrote:
>
><<< This message is part 2 of a previous message >>>
>
>was written by the Task Force on Infant Positioning and SIDS. This
>statement was then (mis)quoted in the same December issue of Newsweek that
>had the much-discussed breastfeeding cover, as a medical alert to warn
>parents against sleeping with their baby.
>
>I, too, do not understand why the findings of an earlier study, as reported
>by RPK Ford et al, "Breastfeeding and the Risk of Sudden Infant Death
>Syndrome," International Journal of Epidemiology 1993; 22(5):885-890, were
>not cited and used to promote breastfeeding as a way to protect against
>SIDS. Even some of the secondary authors of the article later discounted
>the effects of breastfeeding. It's very puzzling to me, as the 1993
>article was so emphatic about the protective benefits. For some reason, it
>seems as though these researchers just don't want breastfeeding to be found
>to be of any importance.
>
>Anne Altshuler, RN, MS, IBCLC and LLL leader in Madison, WI
>[log in to unmask]
>
>------------------------------
>
>End of LACTNET Digest - 3 Jan 1998 - Special issue
>**************************************************
>
Judy Canahuati, MPhil, IBCLC
PO Box #512
San Pedro Sula, Honduras
Telephone: +504-50-9737
Fax: +504-50-7482
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
"The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating.
The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them
changes both the maker and the destination." John Schaar
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