From: 23x11.5c@gmail.com   
      
   Breastfed babies 'are more intelligent'   
      
   Tuesday May 6 2008   
      
   Numerous studies have found that breastfeeding is beneficial   
      
   "Breast-fed babies grow into more intelligent children, with IQs up to eight   
   points higher than those who are bottle fed," the Daily Mail said today.   
   Several newspapers reported on a study that is reputedly the biggest of its   
   kind, looking at 14,000    
   children for more than six years, which found that breastfeeding improves   
   children's IQ and academic performance.   
   The Guardian reported that this study has the added strength that the women in   
   it were randomly allocated to either having breastfeeding support and   
   education aimed at prolonging the duration of breastfeeding, or to receiving   
   standard postnatal care only.   
    It said that earlier studies had suffered from the problem that the women   
   involved had chosen whether they received breastfeeding education or not,   
   meaning that the differences could have been caused by the intelligence or   
   behaviour of the mother. The    
   lead researcher said, "Our study provides the strongest evidence to date that   
   prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding makes kids smarter."   
   The study does have some limitations that need to be considered when   
   interpreting its results. However, it is a large and carefully designed study   
   and along with the many other established benefits of breastfeeding, promotes   
   the idea that breast is best.   
   Where did the story come from?   
      
   Dr Michael S. Kramer and colleagues from McGill University in Canada and   
   National Research and Applied Medicine Mother and Child Centre in Belarus,   
   carried out the research. The study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of   
   Health Research. The study    
   was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal: Archives of General   
   Psychiatry.   
       
   What kind of scientific study was this?   
      
   In this cluster randomised controlled trial, maternity hospitals in Belarus   
   were randomly allocated for their mothers to either receive breastfeeding   
   education or normal maternity care. This was to see whether prolonged and   
   exclusive breastfeeding    
   influences a child's intelligence by the time they reach the age of six and a   
   half years.   
       
   The Promotion of Breastfeeding Intervention Trial (Probit) enrolled 31   
   Belorussian maternity hospitals between June 1996 and December 1997. In the   
   hospitals and clinics that were randomly allocated to promote breastfeeding,   
   mothers who had chosen to    
   breastfeed received support and education on breastfeeding. Those mothers in   
   the hospitals that had been allocated to the control group received standard   
   care only.   
   A total of 17,046 babies were involved, all of whom were above standard birth   
   weight. Both groups were similar in areas such as the mothers' age, education,   
   and whether they smoked during pregnancy, other children living in the house,   
   the number of    
   babies delivered by caesarean and other details of the baby's birth. The   
   research article does not provide information on the proportion of mothers in   
   the breastfeeding promotion or control hospitals who chose to breastfeed their   
   children, although over    
   95% of women in Belarus were reported to have chosen to breastfeed in the   
   period of recruitment for the study.   
   The researchers followed up the children between December 2002 and April 2005,   
   when they were approximately six and a half years of age. This resulted in   
   13,889 children available for follow up, with 7,108 children in the   
   breastfeeding promotion group    
   and 6,781 in the control group. The follow up included paediatrician   
   interviews, examinations and the children taking the Wechsler Abbreviated   
   Scales of Intelligence (WASI) test: a 30 minute test of vocabulary, maths and   
   geometry. Those children who were    
   at school by this time were also evaluated for reading, writing, maths and   
   other subjects by their teachers. Each child was rated on a scale using the   
   Teacher Report Form of the Child Behaviour Checklist and the teachers did not   
   know what group the    
   children were in when they rated the children.   
   The researchers used statistical tests to look for differences between   
   children from the breastfeeding promotion and control group.   
   What were the results of the study?   
      
   The breastfeeding promotion prolonged the duration and exclusivity of   
   breastfeeding (breast milk alone). More mothers in this group were still   
   breastfeeding three months after birth (72.7% v 60% in the control group), at   
   six months (49.8% v 36.1% in the    
   control group), at nine months (36.1% v 24.4% in the control group) and at 12   
   months (19.7% v 11.4% in the control group). The proportion of women   
   exclusively breastfeeding at three months also was much higher amongst the   
   women who had received support (   
   43.3% v 6.4%).   
   The researchers followed 81.5% of the babies through to childhood (13,889)   
   with no differences in drop out between the two conditions. On the WASI tests   
   they found that children from the breastfeeding promotion group scored   
   significantly higher than the    
   controls on scores of vocabulary (mean 4.9 points higher), similarities (mean   
   4.6 points higher) and verbal IQ (mean 7.5 points higher) aspects of the test.   
   Other aspects of IQ showed a trend for improved scores in the breastfeeding   
   promotion group, but    
   the differences did not reach statistical significance.   
   There were no significant differences between the groups in teacher ratings of   
   academic performance (about 75% of the children received school assessment).   
   There were wide within-group differences in scores obtained from the children   
   of each of the    
   different hospitals or clinics in either group.   
   What interpretations did the researchers draw from these results?   
      
   The researchers say that their results are "based on the largest randomised   
   trial ever conducted in the area of human lactation," and that they "strongly   
   suggest that prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding improves cognitive   
   development as measured by IQ    
   and teachers' academic ratings at [the age of] 6.5 years".   
   What does the NHS Knowledge Service make of this study?   
      
   This is a large and carefully designed study. However, there are some   
   limitations worth considering when interpreting it:   
      
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