|
There've been suggestions of a link between breast feeding and childhood intelligence. They key to it all may be the mother's IQ. For years there've been suggestions of a link between breast feeding and childhood intelligence. But a moment's thought makes you realise that there's a lot else going on here. Mothers who breast feed and their circumstances are not necessarily typical of the general population. There are many other factors which could explain this link rather than mother's milk. One which hasn't had much attention is mothers' intelligence. An analysis of about 3000 mothers and their 5000 children has found that maternal IQ is the strongest predictor of a child's intelligence, beating things like education, smoking and poverty. And guess what? The brighter the mother, the more likely she was to breast feed. But it was the IQ not the milk which mattered for the baby. For instance when siblings were compared when one had been breast fed and the other not, there was no difference in their brain power. There are many reasons to breast feed but don't expect it to deliver you an Einstein.
|
