Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ' • Hacker News Board

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#61

Post by _yosefk » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 12:45 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #59

The 1-3 point IQ advantage is widely and consistently reported in the literature, and it's probably right as far as it goes. However, studies that additionally adjust for socioenvironmental factors (mothers who breastfeed are more likely to read to kids, have larger vocabularies, etc), show results around 1 IQ point: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1633786 . The "mothers should have the option" bit in the…

"Breastfeeding removes the father's ability to independently take care of an infant."

This whole mammal thing is seriously backwards then. We should have evolved from snakes (whose offspring takes care of itself completely independently which supposedly is an excellent kind of dynamic.)

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#62

Post by marktangotango » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 12:51 PM UTC

jwdunne wrote: post #32

codebeaker wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to write the same thing, my son was born 6 weeks early, hormonally my wife was not ready to breast feed at all, and we had a hugely painful, and for my wife embarrassing experience sitting hour after hour in the hospital with breast pumps and formula bottles trying to get enough, and the right balance of breast milk and formula into my son. The hospital were adamant that we kept at it, and now some four mon…

Yes, having a child changes you fundamentally. The difference in me has been dramatic. Despite all the stress, I am overall far more emotionally stable. I'm more industrious. There's no stress like having next to no sleep and having a screaming baby who needs you. Most things that work throw at you are nothing. The most important thing is that it teaches you what is and isn't important in life, or at least it did for…

+1000 Last night I got three hours of sleep, in one hour increments. Five month old has a cold and a head full of snot, would not sleep. My wife and I do night on, night off so one of gets some sleep every other night. I'm sitting at my desk wondering how I'm going to get my head into the code today. Three to four hours a night was common for the first 3-4 months.

About breast feeding, my wife produced plenty of milk, only the anatomy of her breasts keeps the baby from latching on. So she pumps and we bottle feed. She really wanted to breast feed this one, but it just didn't work out.

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#63

Post by ptaipale » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 12:52 PM UTC

robmcm wrote: post #48

How long before breast milk becomes so valuable women start selling it for huge profit? I'm going to set up Boober, an app for breast milk delivery and make millions!

Happened a long time ago. Probably already some ancient despot came up with the idea of a healthy diet of breast milk for adults.

I've mixed feelings about this (Young mothers make money by selling their breast milk to bodybuilders on Craigslist)

http://www.theprovince.com/Young+mothers+make+money+selling+...

Or this (edit: on wet-nursing children), from 2006:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1535897/The-last-t...

(edit: on wet-nursing adults), from 2013:

http://metro.co.uk/2013/07/04/chinas-rich-developing-taste-f...

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#64

Post by skywhopper » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 12:52 PM UTC

BenDaglish wrote: post #33

It interests me that the conclusion of these studies is almost always presented as breastfeeding increasing IQ (or conveying health benefits or whatever). Surely, breastfeeding is the norm , and this headline should be "Bottle feeding linked to lower IQ"?

Breastfeeding has not always been the norm. At least in the US in the 70s doctors' advice was strongly against breastfeeding and encouraged switching to formula as soon as possible.

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#65

Post by skywhopper » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 12:58 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #59

The 1-3 point IQ advantage is widely and consistently reported in the literature, and it's probably right as far as it goes. However, studies that additionally adjust for socioenvironmental factors (mothers who breastfeed are more likely to read to kids, have larger vocabularies, etc), show results around 1 IQ point: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1633786 . The "mothers should have the option" bit in the…

Thanks for the data, and I agree with your other comments in general. Articles about these studies pretty much always oversimplify the calculus.

I'll add that besides paternal involvement, maternal stress over societal pressure to breastfeed if it's not working out for some reason can certainly be worse for the overall outcomes than the loss of breastfeeding.

I'm glad that this study apparently included socioeconomic factors, but my instinct is that there are many other factors being left out. What are the correlations with maternal work schedules, time spent bonding with the child in other ways, etc? My guess is that other potential impacts on IQ and long-term outcomes not considered by this article also correlate with the breastfeeding/formula decision.

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#66

Post by user_0001 » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 12:59 PM UTC

_yosefk wrote: post #61

rayiner wrote: post #59

The 1-3 point IQ advantage is widely and consistently reported in the literature, and it's probably right as far as it goes. However, studies that additionally adjust for socioenvironmental factors (mothers who breastfeed are more likely to read to kids, have larger vocabularies, etc), show results around 1 IQ point: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1633786 . The "mothers should have the option" bit in the…

"Breastfeeding removes the father's ability to independently take care of an infant." This whole mammal thing is seriously backwards then. We should have evolved from snakes (whose offspring takes care of itself completely independently which supposedly is an excellent kind of dynamic.)

+ 1 I agree whole heartedly [1]

[1]source: father of two

;-)

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#67

Post by Symmetry » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 1:02 PM UTC

This is something people have been going back and forth about for decades. There's even been a study that used more people and was randomized and controlled. You can read actual literature surveys of all the ways parents can affect their kids' IQs here: http://squid314.livejournal.com/346391.html

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#68

Post by mkagenius » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 1:06 PM UTC

paulfr wrote: post #22

Just 2 weeks ago, I won a machine learning contest with a $20,000 prize pool where the goal was to predict the IQ of a child at age 7, based on various biological measurements and demographic indicators. The data includes whether a child was breastfed. After reading the article I did some very quick computations and my finding based on the model I developed is that children who were not breastfed have an IQ impairmen…

> impairment in the 1-3 IQ points range, after accounting for confounding factors.

But 1-3 IQ points doesn't seem much, right? I mean, what difference would it make in real life activities?

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#69

Post by grandalf » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 1:09 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #59

The 1-3 point IQ advantage is widely and consistently reported in the literature, and it's probably right as far as it goes. However, studies that additionally adjust for socioenvironmental factors (mothers who breastfeed are more likely to read to kids, have larger vocabularies, etc), show results around 1 IQ point: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1633786 . The "mothers should have the option" bit in the…

> Breastfeeding removes the father's ability to independently take care of an infant. Because feeding is a bonding experience, this creates a dynamic where the child looks at the mother as the last line in being comforted. This is a choice couples can make, but it is one that involves trade offs, which the medical community ignores.

What about a breast pump? As long as some lactating female provides milk, the milk can be frozen for months and is nearly as convenient as formula for a father.

Also FWIW men can lactate if appropriate hormone injections are given.

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#70

Post by paulfr » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 1:12 PM UTC

e12e wrote: post #60

paulfr wrote: post #22

Just 2 weeks ago, I won a machine learning contest with a $20,000 prize pool where the goal was to predict the IQ of a child at age 7, based on various biological measurements and demographic indicators. The data includes whether a child was breastfed. After reading the article I did some very quick computations and my finding based on the model I developed is that children who were not breastfed have an IQ impairmen…

Thank you for taking the time to comment about your work. I came to comment on the headline, basically to say that "Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'" sounds awfully backwards -- surely this isn't really a result "in favour of" breastfeeding, but rather pretty damning evidence against formulas/substitutes ? I like your formulation much better: > children who were not breastfed have an IQ impairment

I see the article climbing back up the front page, and I want to make it abundantly clear that I don't believe that there is necessarily a causal relation from breastfeeding vs formula to IQ.

I could control for demographic factors, but not for other major important factors in a child's development -- parental IQ or views regarding parenting are huge factors in a child's IQ, and they may also influence the decision of whether or not to breastfeed. If parenting books unanimously decided that formula was bad, then parents who cared enough about their children to read them and follow their advice would be more likely to breastfeed and you would see a positive correlation with IQ, even if formula was completely equivalent to breastfeeding.

So while there is a clear correlation after controlling for demographic, there is not necessarily a causation. My formulation really wasn't meant to imply causation, but rather the handling of unknown data (I grouped unknown-status children together with breastfed children). When talking about correlation, it's not meaningful to make a distinction between IQ impairment and IQ gain.