The smart thing about breastfeeding

What happened
A study released this week provided fresh evidence that breast-feeding can make children smarter. The research by scientists in Canada and Belarus showed that babies whose mothers breast-fed them longer—and never used formula—scored about 5 percent higher on IQ tests several years later and did better academically than other kids. (Reuters)

What the commentators said
The evidence about the benefits of breastfeeding is really piling up, said Jacob Goldstein in The Wall Street Journal’s Health blog. Breast-fed children in this study scored higher in every measure of intelligence, although the differences were small—in some cases not statistically significant. In some areas—including verbal IQ—the advantages gained by the breast-fed kids were “significant.” Since this was the largest randomized trial on the subject, the findings really back up the growing evidence that breastfeeding makes kids at least a little smarter. ... read rest of story