How Breastfeeding Helps Brain Development
Breast milk is important for your child's brain development. It is the best brain food you can give them during their infancy because it contains everything your child's developing brain needs. During the first two months of your baby's life, their brain is going through rapid development. Different lobes of the brain are developing to hone their senses, reflexes, motor skills, and much more! Because the brain is in charge of both voluntary and involuntary functions, it needs all the help it can get from your breast milk for as long as it can get it. This is especially true for an infant because most of their functions are involuntary.
From the other articles on this site, you learned that whatever you eat can be passed on to your child through breast milk. During these first two integral months, and in succeeding months, try eating foods that enhance brain development. These “brain foods” will benefit both you and your child. Brain foods include various forms of protein. Eating healthily and stocking up on brain foods can assure you of your child's health and development, but it can also promote healthy eating when your child is older.
You will see the effects of breastfeeding on brain development when your child begins to talk, but more so when your child enters school. It has been noticed that children who were breastfed perform better and faster than children who were not. Many studies have shown that on average, breastfed children posses an IQ up to five to ten points higher than their non-breastfed peers. The grade point average of breastfed children is also usually higher than that of their non-breastfed peers.
In a specific study done by the American University in Washington, 191 pairs of siblings, of each pair one was breastfed and the other not were monitored for academic performance. Siblings were chosen in order to prevent socioeconomic status, parental style, quality of environment, and other possible factors from interfering in the variables of the study. The results of the study showed that the breastfed children did indeed perform better than their siblings, and that breastfeeding has long term educational benefits for most children. In fact, breastfed children are more likely to go to college than their non-breastfed peers or siblings.
It is easy to see how breastfeeding can be vital to your child's brain development for both their current and future use. While intelligence and academic performance can have other factors, breastfeeding your child can go a long way in helping them be the best that they can be.
Next Article: Breastfeeding and Your Child's Physical Development
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