L’breastfeeding makes you smarter. In a nutshell, this is the result of a study by the University of Oxford. Researchers at the prestigious British university have found that babies who were breastfed for at least a year had a 38% higher chance of passing the General Certificate of Secondary Education with top marks, an exam taken by British students at the about sixteen years old. You can read the results in the scientific journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.
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Breastfeeding: many benefits for children
We have long known that thebreastfeeding it has significantly important effects for the future health of children. Breast milk contains polyunsaturated fatty acids, which some studies claim aid in cognitive development. In reality, these studies have also been much criticized. Children who are breastfed for longer usually have a mother who may not work and follow her children more in their studies.
However, the new study shows that children are better at school if breastfed for at least twelve months even if children of families with a low socio-economic profile.
No guilt for those who can’t breastfeed. Milk donated by other mothers is recommended
The researchers immediately put their hands forward, arguing that mothers who cannot breastfeed their children should not feel guilty. But he always gets promoted. Mothers who can breastfeed must do so, even using tricks such as a breast pump. In this way babies can drink breast milk even when the mother is working or in any case she is not near them at the time of feeding. In several cities it is possible to apply for the breast milk donated by other mothers.
Breastfeeding makes you smarter: the more you breastfeed, the higher your grades in school
The experts analyzed the data of 4940 boys born between 2000 and 2002. The work team took the information from Millennium Cohort Study. This is a database that collects information on the health of about 19,000 British citizens born in Great Britain after 2000. That’s why it is also called the study of new century children.
Mathematics is the best subject
A third of the participants have never been breastfed. Experts divided the other two-thirds into subgroups according to how many months they had been breastfed by their mother. The comparison between the period of breastfeeding and the results in the exam carried out at the age of sixteen have shown that there is a directly proportional relationship: the more months of breastfeeding, the more likely to get top marks. The highest grades are in mathematics. The study is observational. This means that the researchers do not explain why this happens. They limit themselves to statistically analyze the phenomenon. Now we need new studies to understand the reasons.
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