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Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

bbc.com

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Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#81

Post by grandalf »

rayiner wrote: post #80
grandalf wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ca…

I think in practice that's more of a way to "include the father in the process" than genuinely have him offload a task from the mother. I think for many if not most couples, it's almost as much work as breastfeeding and bottle feeding combined.

Perhaps... but my larger point is that a father doesn't have to decide to check out of the responsibilities in order to have his kid breast fed. Thanks to breast pumps a working mom can manage it, and there is a market for fresh breast milk sold by lactating mothers who have a surplus.

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#82

Post by [deleted] »

grandalf wrote: post #69
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 ca…

[deleted]

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#83

Post by drzaiusapelord »

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…

>Also often ignored is how these choices affect fathers.

My wife and just adopted and its hard not to feel second class when there's all this horse wisdom about breastfeeding, which just isn't an option for us. Thankfully, I don't see 1-3 IQ points as having any practical advantage. I could see perhaps 10+ as being meaningful. We're not even sure what IQ measures other than the ability to take IQ tests. I'm not saying the test is useless, but its a synthetic benchmark and the realm of 1 to 3 points may be meaningless itself, even though its measurable, the same way spending an extra $200 on my desktop will mean my games will go from 45fps to 60fps. I doubt I'd notice.

Its also bothersome that IQ is the only metric social and biological sciences take seriously. I'd love to see the results of different lifestyle choices on things like emotional intelligence or creative intelligence.

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#84

Post by [deleted] »

grandalf wrote: post #81
rayiner wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in practice that's more of a way to "include the father in the process" than genuinely have him offload a task from the mother. I think for many if not most couples, it's almost as much work as breastfeeding and bottle feeding combined.

Perhaps... but my larger point is that a father doesn't have to decide to check out of the responsibilities in order to have his kid breast fed. Thanks to breast pumps a working mom can manage it, and there is a market for fresh breast milk sold by lactating mothers who have a surplus.

[deleted]

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#85

Post by [deleted] »

streptomycin wrote: post #75
mkagenius wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

It's roughly the same as the change that happened when we stopped using leaded gas, which seems to have had a huge affect on society. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Toxicity Also it's just one relatively simple thing. Imagine we find several things that can all increase IQ by a couple points...

[deleted]

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#86

Post by [deleted] »

deepGem wrote: post #30
jwdunne wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some cases, the pressure to breastfeed can do more harm than good. If the parent is feeling stressed, as it can be an extremely intense and also painful experience, the bonding process can suffer. More importantly, some mothers just cannot produce enough milk. The father of my adopted son forced my wife to breastfeed. Over a 3 month period, the poor boy lost a dangerous amount of weight and needed a stay in hospit…

"More importantly, some mothers just cannot produce enough milk" - Is there any anecdotal evidence to prove this. One lactation consultant told us that this claim is totally false. According to her, all women who give birth can and will produce enough breast milk and she had the evidence to prove that.

[deleted]

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#87

Post by [deleted] »

mkagenius wrote: post #68
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?

[deleted]

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#88

Post by trey-jones »

_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.)

Also father of 2. Wife breast-fed both kids to about 14 months. I frequently gave a bottle (of breastmilk) to the first. Second wouldn't take the bottle at all. I never felt left out of the process. I changed (and still change) diapers and contribute in other ways. Mommy mostly handled bedtime until breastfeeding was over - now I frequently handle bedtime. With the second child, during the first year I handled most of the first-kid duties while my wife took care of the baby. I don't see a problem with this at all. My kids (5 and 1) are always excited to see me when I get home, so much so that my wife is more likely to feel left out than I am. Insinuating that breastfeeding causes kids to look to the mother as the last line of comfort is ridiculous in my opinion. Women are literally MADE to do this and I don't care what modern "gender equality" proponents might make of that statement.

Edit: I do want to qualify by saying that I do recognize that it's not possibly for every mother to breast feed and I'm not even trying to argue that breastfeeding is superior. I only take issue with the idea that breastfeeding negatively impacts the father's participation.

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#89

Post by dhagz »

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…

I'm getting ready to propose to my girlfriend, and reading what you've written has made me immeasurably more excited to become a father. I constantly worry about what we're going to do when we raise our kids and if we'll raise well-developed, smart and productive kids, and this just gave me a shot of confidence that we'll do okay.

Re: Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

#90

Post by dpark »

grandalf wrote: post #69
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 ca…

> 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.

There have been few (if any?) studies that look closely at breastfeeding vs bottlefeeding pumped milk. Our society has jumped on the "pump and bottle" wagon because it's seen as a viable way to allow women to go back to work sooner while still "breastfeeding", but it's not known if this actually has the same effect.

Does the increase in IQ/whatever come from the nutritional content of the breastmilk? Does it come from antibodies or other contents that might be impacted by refrigeration/freezing followed by reheating? Does it come purely from the emotional bonding that breastfeeding promotes? We don't know, because we don't even know why breastfeeding is better than formula, and we're basically giving medical advice blindly when it comes to pumping.

But for what it's worth, the difference is so small as to be pretty meaningless. The "gap" is going to be dwarfed by other factors, both genetic and environmental.

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