Breast-feeding Benefits Overstated? Researchers Confirm

The benefits of breast-feeding, which have been praised for decades, may have been severely overstated, according to a new study.

It has been the long-held belief that breast-feeding provides benefits to one's child that bottled formula milk cannot. Improved cognitive and muscles development in children have both been tied in past studies to breast-feeding, with varying -- but all conclusively positive -- results.

However, a new study published in Social Science and Media argues that all these benefits may have been grossly overstated. In this study, researchers examined data on approximately 20,000 children. Researchers measured 11 factors that have been tied to breastfeeding in the children, including body mass index (BMI), asthma, hyperactivity, parental attachment, and intelligence (measured by academic achievement, vocabulary, and scholastic competence). The researchers looked into whether or not each child breastfed, and if so, for how long.

When the researchers looked at unrelated children from the overall group, they found that breastfeeding did indeed seem tied to increased intelligence and health. Health benefits pertaining to weight maintenance in particular, such as decreased obesity rates were found in the breastfed children. However, when the researcher looked at sibling pairs, where one child was breastfed while the other was given formula, the breastfeeding benefits did not appear to be as significant. Instead, they did find peculiar numbers that indicated that breastfed children were more prone to developing asthma.

The researchers concluded their study writing that the results indicated that while breast feeding likely has some health benefits for children, it is not nearly as necessary as past recommendations from the medical community have indicated. Results such as these should hopefully take some of the pressure off mothers for which breastfeeding might be very difficult.

The study was published in Social Science & Medicine on January 29.