After the largest US infant formula factory closed due to a suspected contamination accident, parents scrambled to find baby formula, factories worked around the clock to produce more, military cargo planes were used to transport milk from abroad, and empty store shelves prompted some mothers to consider trying breastfeeding. natural.

According to National Public Radio (NPR), aggressive marketing by the $55 billion infant formula industry in the US and abroad is one reason for the reluctance to breastfeed.

“We must understand that breast milk is part of food systems, and that the breast is the shortest supply chain for infant formula,” said University of California economist Cady Ross, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. We did more to support breastfeeding, we wouldn't be in this mess."

But the paradox is that a recent study was issued at the same time, urging breastfeeding, as it is related to raising the IQ of children when they grow up.

The first guide

In 2015, a major study was published in Brazil, in which researchers followed nearly 6,000 children of different social levels, from birth until they reached the age of 30, and revealed an association between breastfeeding and the level of intelligence, after noticing that children who were breastfed for a period Longer, they scored higher on IQ tests after puberty, 4 points higher than those who weren't breastfed.

Dr Bernardo Lisa Horta, who led the study, told the Guardian newspaper that his study "provides the first evidence that prolonged breastfeeding has an impact on improving educational attainment and future work success."

But experts said the results of the study were uncertain, and more research was needed.

New Supportive Study

A recent study came from Oxford University, in the United Kingdom, published a few days ago, and confirms that children who are breastfed for a year or more, scored the best results in thinking skills, and also achieved additional points in the intelligence index, regardless of cognitive abilities or socioeconomic status. To the mother, and that children who get their mother's milk for longer, they score higher on tests of thinking in their teens.

The mentioned study indicated that "mother's milk contains polyunsaturated fatty acids and nutrients such as iron, which help in the development of children's brains, and make them less susceptible to diseases, which develops their intelligence and reduces their absence from school."

Better childhood and adolescence

The study examined the relationship between the duration of breastfeeding and children's thinking skills, and included more than 7800 British children, who were followed for 14 years, and divided into 4 groups, the first included children who were breastfed for less than two months, while the children in the second group were breastfed 2 to 4 months, in the third group from 4 to 6 months, and in the fourth for more than a year.

And it turned out that children who were breastfed for a longer period were better in cognitive tests, where the performance of children who were breastfed for a period of 4 to 6 months, was better in the test of memory, inference and spatial awareness, at the age of seven, and they were better to a lesser degree at the age of five. , compared to children who were never breastfed.

And 11-year-olds made fewer errors on tests measuring spatial awareness and problem-solving skills.

It was also noted that the strongest association between breastfeeding and vocabulary skills is in children aged 14 years. The study indicates that the differences in scores are equivalent to 3 IQ points.

The study concluded that breastfeeding for longer may enhance children's intelligence and "should not be underestimated".

important gains

"If children's IQ increases, on average, by about 3 points, we can see that they have important differences, which makes us recommend supporting women who want to breastfeed," the study's supervisor, Dr. Rene Pereira Elias, told the British newspaper "Daily Mail". ".

Nearly a third of the children in the study were never breastfed, and only 23% had been breastfed for at least 6 months.

Although the World Health Organization advises mothers to exclusively breastfeed their children for at least 6 months, proclaiming that “breastfed children achieve better results in intelligence tests”, only about 48% of British mothers, and 52% of Americans, are committed to breastfeeding. normal for this period.

A study published in 2021 also found that only 3 of the 94 countries surveyed are expected to reach the World Health Organization's goal of 70% prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding by 2030.

Also, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended that most babies be exclusively breastfed for the first six months, but in 2018, only 1 in 4 babies born in the United States achieved this goal.

However, Elias cautions that the results of the study - despite their importance - should not cause concern for women who were not breastfed, or who could not breastfeed, "because the gains in the IQ of children who breastfed for months, compared to children who were not breastfed, do not exceed two points to 3 points.