Breastfeeding - good for your baby and right into adulthood!
Introduction
New research appears to show that breastfeeding not only increases children's IQ levels, but also helps to protect against obesity and heart disease in adulthood....
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Protect your baby by breastfeeding....
Mothers have been saying it for years, and now scientists have once again shown that breast, indeed, can be best.
Two new studies have shown that breastfeeding not only lowers the risk of heart disease in adulthood, but can also help to raise IQ levels. Breast-fed babies are also less likely to be obese as adults.
One of the new studies – by Nisha Parikh of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston, USA - found that people who had been breastfed showed lower than average body mass index and higher than average levels of the so-called "good" HDL cholesterol in adulthood. Both of these offer protection against cardiovascular disease.
“The benefits of breast-feeding in infancy and childhood are well established,” said Dr Parikh, who decided to do the research after returning from maternity leave. “But I wondered if it were as helpful for health in adulthood.”
Her research found that it was – with breast-feeding having positive effects “even after accounting for personal and maternal demographic and CVD risk factors that could influence the results.” In other words, the research stood, even taking into account other factors such as smoking, weight and the mother’s socio-economic status.
Meanwhile another study has found that breastfeeding appears to increase intelligence by an average of seven IQ points. The research by scientists at King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry looked at more than 3,000 children in Britain and New Zealand and found that it raised intelligence if the children had a particular (common) version of a gene called FADS2. The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Our findings support the idea that the nutritional content of breast milk accounts for the differences seen in human IQ," said Terrie Moffitt of King's College. "But it depends to some extent on the genetic makeup of each infant."
Supernanny Team
Related Links
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