Leah asked
>        My question to you as health care professionals is what do you
>tell your patients when asking advice on the benefits of breastfeeding and
>intelligence? Also, has your opinions been swayed over the 20 years of
>debate and recent information?

First I want to say that one has to be wary with breastfeeding research and
look carefully at the definitions of breastfed and not breastfed - sometimes
they almost overlap and you can virtually predict there will not be
different outcomes. Also, with a variable like IQ which is affected by so
many factors, you need HUGE sample groups to get any significant finding.

The studies you quote, and the many more that you don't quote, all find that
breastfeeding either made no difference or it improved various measures of
cognitive function. In other words, the trend is in only one direction. No
study has ever shown breastfed babies had lower IQs.

The brains of premature babies, which undergo rapid brain grown after
delivery, will be more affected by their nutrition. Lucas's study (8-10 IQ
points from 2 weeks of breastmilk!) would probably not be so dramatic with
full-term babies.

Despite what the companies like to tell us, scientific studies of breastmilk
and infant formula show the latter is a very inferior product, missing many
hundreds of components essential for optimum human development. Breastmilk
will let the baby develop it's full potential, as nature intended.  There is
no evidence that artificial feeding can in any way approximate this - the
baby will inevitably be compromised, although we can't always say in which
ways, and in the case of IQ, by how much.

Ros Escott
Hobart, Tasmania
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