Year: 2010
Type: preprint
Abstract: ISER Working Paper Series www.iser.essex.ac.ukNon-Technical Summary This paper examines the effect of breastfeeding on children´s cognitive outcomes, as measured by test scores in reading, writing and mathematics measured at ages 5, 7, 11, and 14. Breastfeeding is an issue of considerable importance for policy in the UK. Breastfeeding rates are relatively low in the UK compared to elsewhere in the developed world: the World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding exclusively for six months and alongside solid foods for two years, but in the UK, barely one in three infants is exclusively breastfed during the first four months of life. The links between breastfeeding and positive health outcomes in children are well known. There is also a well-documented relationship between breastfeeding and better cognitive outcomes. However, a difficulty arises in studying this relationship. Because breastfeeding is more likely to be practiced by mothers whose characteristics (higher social class, higher IQ, higher levels of human capital, etc.) favour more positive outcomes for their children, it is not clear whether the relationship between breastfeeding and better cognitive outcomes is causal (breastfeeding causes children to do better) or whether it arises merely because mothers who breastfeed are likely to have more successful children anyway. Several statistical approaches exist which are able to deal with this issue of causality. However, it is
Authors: Maria Iacovou, Almudena Sevilla
Language: English
Subfield: Epidemiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2104107242