Is Breast Still Best?

Jessica Grose flags a new study questioning the long-term benefits of breastfeeding:

[Ohio State University professor Cynthia Colen] looked at more than 8,000 children total, about 25 percent of whom were in “discordant sibling pairs,” which means one was bottle-fed and the other was breast-fed. The study then measured those siblings for 11 outcomes, including BMI, obesity, asthma, different measures of intelligence, hyperactivity, and parental attachment.

When children from different families were compared, the kids who were breast-fed did better on those 11 measures than kids who were not breast-fed. But, as Colen points out, mothers who breast-feed their kids are disproportionately advantaged—they tend to be wealthier and better educated. When children fed differently within the same family were compared—those discordant sibling pairs—there was no statistically significant difference in any of the measures, except for asthma. Children who were breast-fed were at a higher risk for asthma than children who drank formula.

But the study does not dispute the other benefits of breastfeeding:

Colen and [co-author David] Ramey did not examine the short-term protection against chest and gut infections, because these have been most clearly demonstrated by previous research. Breast is still best, says Colen, but the findings suggest that health systems should put less effort into promoting breastfeeding and more into other ways to help poorer households, she says.

Another recent study attributes the higher IQs commonly associated with breastfeeding to other factors:

[A] new study by sociologists at Brigham Young University pinpoints two parenting skills as the real source of this cognitive boost: Responding to children’s emotional cues and reading to children starting at 9 months of age. Breastfeeding mothers tend to do both of those things, said lead study author Ben Gibbs. “It’s really the parenting that makes the difference,” said Gibbs. “Breastfeeding matters in others ways, but this actually gives us a better mechanism and can shape our confidence about interventions that promote school readiness.”