Breastfeeding has remained in the limelight for quiet sometime due to the benefits it provides to the baby in terms of protecting against diseases and also lowering the rate of mortality. It has also been linked to children who were breastfed have higher IQs.
A new addition to this theory has come from a study conducted in Brazil in 1982 on the infants that were born in Pelotas. About 5,914 new mothers were interviewed regarding their breastfeeding plans and were later followed up to check upon how their children turned out about 30 years later.
It was seen that breastfeeding has showed a positive connection in terms of increasing performance, intelligence, education, school education as well as larger paychecks.
The study’s author, Dr. Lessa Horta observed that children who were breastfed for a year or more had higher IQ (3.7 points), higher education and also earned about 20% more than a average income.
One of the reasons to these developments is possibly due to the polyunsaturated fatty acids that is found in breast milk in abundance and has been found to be important for the growth and development of the brain.
Since every single factor wasn’t taken into consideration in the study, it has remained unclear if there were other things which influenced these outcomes as well.
