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Babies May Get Boost From Nursing Longer

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Los Angeles Times

Published: May 6, 2008

Increased breast-feeding during the first months of life appears to raise a child's verbal IQ, according to a study of nearly 14,000 children released Monday.

The study in Archives of General Psychiatry found that 6-year-olds whose mothers were part of a program that encouraged them to breast-feed had a verbal IQ that was 7.5 points higher that children in a control group.

The researchers said their findings suggested that the longer an infant is fed exclusively breast milk, the greater the IQ improvement.

The results echo smaller previous studies that found children and adults who were breast-fed tend to have higher IQs than whose who were not.

Lead author Michael Kramer, a professor of pediatrics at McGill University in Montreal, said the IQ improvements were modest and might not be noticeable on an individual basis. But he added that the increase could have a significant effect on society as a whole.

"We're not talking about making a child who has trouble in school and is dropping out into a genius," he said. "But if we can increase IQ by three to four points in the whole population, we can have fewer children at the low end and more Einsteins at the high end."

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