Breastfeeding your child could give them an advantage in adulthood

Every parent wants their child to achieve the best in life, and according to one study breastfeeding can have an impact on their potential success.

A new study published in The Lancet Global Health journal has found that longer periods of breastfeeding is linked to increased intelligence in adulthood, higher earnings and longer schooling.

During the study, Brazilian researchers followed nearly 6,000 newborn babies from birth for the past three decades. While previous research has established the effect of breastfeeding on brain development, it’s the first time we’ve been able to see its long-term effects.

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“Our study provides the first evidence that prolonged breastfeeding not only increases intelligence until at least the age of 30 years but also has an impact both at an individual and societal level by improving education attainment and earning ability,” said lead study author Dr Bernardo Lessa Horta from the Federal University of Pelotas in Brazil.

What’s more, this study highlighted the positive effects of breastfeeding, regardless of socioeconomic status. “In the population we studied, breastfeeding was not more common among highly educated, high-income women, but was evenly distributed by social class,” Lessa Horta said. “Previous studies from developed countries have been criticised for failing to disentangle the effect of breastfeeding from that of socioeconomic advantage, but our work addresses this issue for the first time."

In analysing the results, researchers also took into account the family income at birth, parental schooling, maternal age, smoking during pregnancy, birth weight and type of delivery, in an attempt to avoid those factors affecting the results.

Breastfed babies had a greater intelligence, measured by a standard IQ test, had spent more years in education and had higher earnings. The length of the breastfeeding period also affected the results. Breastfeeding for more than 12 months led to an IQ four points higher than those who breastfed for less than a month, and they earned around $135 more a month.

These benefits all come down to the nutrients found in breast milk. Namely the long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (DHAs), which is “essential for brain development,” said Horta. “Our finding that predominant breastfeeding is positively related to IQ in adulthood also suggests that the amount of milk consumed plays a role.”

Currently, the World Health Organisation recommended breastfeeding for the first six months of a child’s life.

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