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Breast-fed boys do well academically

It was found that babies who were mainly breast-fed for six months or longer had higher academic scores on standardised tests than those breast-fed fewer than six months.

Breast-fed boys do well academically

Adding to reports that breast-feeding boosts brain health, a new study finds that infants breast-fed for six months or longer, especially boys, do considerably better in school at age 10 years compared to bottle-fed toddlers.

It's been long understood that breast milk is of great value to infant neurological development, particularly long-chain fatty acids.

To examine the relationship between longer duration of breastfeeding and educational outcomes, researchers from looked at the academic scores at age 10 years of 2868 children whose mothers had enrolled in an ongoing study in Australia. After adjusting for such factors as gender, family income, maternal factors and early stimulation at home, such as reading to children, the researchers estimated the links between breast-feeding and educational outcomes.

It was found that babies who were mainly breast-fed for six months or longer had higher academic scores on standardised tests than those breast-fed fewer than six months. But the outcome varied by gender, and the improvements were only significant from a statistical point of view for the boys. The boys had better scores in math, reading, spelling and writing if they were breast-fed six months or longer. Girls breast-fed for six months or longer had a small but statistically insignificant benefit only in reading scores.

The reason for the gender differences is unclear, but the researchers speculates that the protective role of breast milk on the brain and its later consequences for language development may have greater benefits for boys because they are more vulnerable during critical development periods than females, therefore the neuro-protective effect of estrodiols, the female hormones, in breast milk, would have greater benefits for boys.

Another possibility has to do with the positive effect of breastfeeding on the mother-child relationship. A number of studies found that boys are more reliant than girls on maternal attention and encouragement for the acquisition of cognitive and language skills. If breastfeeding facilitates mother-child interactions, then a positive effect of this bond is expected to be greater in males compared with females, as the findings indicate.
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