A new study in the British Medical Journal suggests that breast
feeding does not have an effect on children's intelligence once
you account for mother's IQ. BMJ,
doi:10.1136/bmj.38978.699583.55 (published 4 October 2006)
Effect of breast feeding on intelligence in children:
prospective study, sibling pairs analysis, and meta-analysis
Geoff Der et al. Objective To assess the importance of maternal
intelligence, and the effect of controlling for it and other
important confounders, in the link between breast feeding and
children's intelligence. Design Examination of the effect of
breast feeding on cognitive ability and the impact of a range of
potential confounders, in particular maternal IQ, within a
national database. Additional analyses compared pairs of
siblings from the sample who were and were not breast fed. The
results are considered in the context of other studies that have
also controlled for parental intelligence via meta-analysis.
Setting 1979 US national longitudinal survey of youth. Subjects
Data o