Study indicates breastfeeding may boost babies' IQs
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2014 11:11 AM

Baby formula is designed to mimic milk moms provide, as it has all the vital nutrients a newborn needs. However, despite the fact that formula contains the proper nutrition, scientists have found that breast? milk somehow still has more benefits than formula. For instance, children who drink breast? milk are less prone to eczema and ear infections. Now researchers have found yet another reason to breastfeed: intelligence. According to a study by Harvard University, breastfeeding during the first 6 months of life may increase a baby's IQ by the time they reach childhood.

Analyzing feeding options
Researchers analyzed data from Project Viva, a study analyzing pregnancy and child health, and compared it to intelligence tests. Project Viva included 1,312 expectant mothers. Researchers had the kids take an IQ test after they reached age 7. Some of the children were fed exclusively breast? milk for their first 6 months of life, while others had a combination of formula and breast? milk or exclusively formula. 

The results indicated that the more breast? milk infants were fed, the greater the intelligence advantages. Kids who had any breast? milk as an infant or had it along with formula gained 1/3 of an IQ point per month of breastfeeding more than kids who drank exclusively formula. With that data, a child who had some combination of the feeding options for their first year of life would have an estimated IQ 4.2 points greater than kids who had only formula for 12 months.

Breastfeeding has highest results
Infants who drank only breast? milk saw the highest increase in IQ scores: They had 4/5 of a verbal IQ point for each month of only breastfeeding. So in six months of only breastfeeding, kids could potentially gain an extra 4.8 points of verbal IQ. 

What's more, the researchers noted that the advantage presented by breastfeeding didn't dissipate over time. Kids who had the extra verbal IQ points remained further along than their peers throughout life.

"I would take three or four IQ points any given day," Michael Georgieff, director of the Center for Neurobehavioral Development at the University of Minnesota Medical School, who was not involved in the study, said in a statement. "It's a pretty significant shift, especially demographically across the world if everyone were to make that gain."

The loose connection
The connection between breastfeeding and IQ is a correlative one, not a causal one. Researchers aren't yet sure what about a mother's breast? milk offers intelligence benefits or why formula doesn't produce the same effects. In fact, scientists still have a lot of studying to do before they fully understand the human breast? milk matrix.