I think these guys were unloved as children :)

Breast is best. Fact.

What has IQ got to do with anything?

How is IQ measured?

In what way did this study aim to correlate the results from breast fed babies to those non breast fed in relation to what kind of testing?

Breast is best. Never forget it. Don't buy their bottled crap.

Now let me guess.............

Is this yet another of "All of the world's scientists agree.." (oops sorry, it's not about climate change)

Is this a piece of research sponsored by Nestle (or another baby milk company) whose sales are falling ?

I was bottle-fed and I am a genius

What has IQ got to do with breast feeding anyway? Why report such ambiguity?

I'll tell you why "breast is best", at least the first 72 hours worth. The colostrum (the first milk a lactating lady produces which is thick and yellow looking) contains immunogloblins which are complex proteins that allow any immunisation that the mother has built up against various diseases over the years to be passed to the child. It is also high in fat and it's well known that the baby can lose weight in the first few days of life. If more women at least rtied to pass on the colostrum to their kids, if only for the first few feeds, less children would be allergic to just about everything under the sun these days.

My qualifications you ask? Got an HND in agriculture and animal physiology class taught me the above in relation to ruminants and non ruminants (such as pigs, to which we are closely related to in physiological terms). Never mind about IQ, concentrate on immunisation.

Intelligent mothers do many intelligent things, one of which is breastfeeding. Because they do many intelligent things, they raise intelligent kids. It's the package that matters.

I never thought breast feeding had anything to do with IQ, but more to do with how well-adjusted a child will be as a person in relationships with others.

How interesting - all the comments on this blog about breastfeeding seem to be from men. Freud would have a field day, here!! :D

MS - if you're female - I apologise - but I suspect that you're male!! ;-)

Joanna#8: I'm not sure what you're implying but it could be that women are just too busy breast feeding to get to a computer but hey, I'm sure the sisters will be piling in now. Take an interest/butt out, us men can't win. Freud is dead, let's move on.

If we could breastfeed we would. It happens that we can't but only a woman would find fault with the creator of man.

Just making an observation, guys, no need to start 'beating your breasts'!! ;-))

OK ok! Mind you, have you noticed the rise of the moobs? Man boobs? It's scarey!

If you read the full study: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/bmj.38978... you will see that when looking at the duration of breastfeeding, there are increasingly significant differences when assessing intelligence test scores.

This particular research has only taken the average duration of breastfeeding into account in its conclusion – this being around 3 months. On Table 4, the analysis was repeated, and divided those breastfed into quarters of duration of breastfeeding, and contrasted each of these with those not breastfed. Significant differences were shown in the intelligence tests but only for those in the top quarter of duration of breastfeeding.

Unfortunately, as the researchers were only interested in looking at the average duration of breastfeeding, they did not study the effects of breast milk on intelligence beyond the age of 29 weeks. Even looking at this short duration you can see that the score doubles from 0.32 at 1-5 weeks to 0.65 at 13-28 weeks and then again to 1.50 at =29 weeks which would concur with previous research which showed that a longer duration of breastfeeding produces significant differences in IQ scores when compared to non-breastfed children, even with all other confounding factors being taken into account.