Jack Newman writes about Sheila Innis' quote:
>What she is quoted as saying in the article is technically correct,
>however.  Women who breastfeed tend to be more educated that those that
>don't, at least in western societies.

Yes, this is true, but the studies that have compared IQ in breastfed versus
bottle-fed babies CONTROLLED FOR THIS FACT.  Yes, I'm shouting.  They found
bottle-feeding mothers who had the same socio-economic status and the same
educational level (and matched educational level of the father too), so that
these factors could not account for the difference in IQ.  Also, as far back
as 1929, a study showed that breastfed babies had higher IQs, at a time when
the breastfed babies were the children of poor, uneducated immigrant women,
and the bottle-feeding mothers were the high socio-economic status,
well-educated women.

Do these people not read the studies?  Do they think that people who do
research on breastfeeding are all idiots and don't know how to design a
study or control for confounding variables?  Drives me nuts.

Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Texas A&M University