Two recent studies offer further support for the benefits of breast milk. One, appearing in this month’s Pediatrics magazine, claims that babies who are breast-fed for more than three months are less likely to become bedwetters. Non-bedwetters had also been breastfed for an average of three months longer than bedwetters. The researchers caution, however, that their findings are still preliminary.
Another study, also in the current Pediatrics, says that premature infants weighing less than 2 pounds, 3 ounces, do better on mental-development tests if they are fed breast milk rather than formula in the hospital. Researchers say that the fatty acids in breast milk help the final stages of brain development that would normally occur in the womb during full-term pregnancies.
I’m not a militant breast-feed-or-else type. I think the decision on whether to breast feed, and if so, for how long, is an intensely personal one. I think the current studies, however, are useful in helping parents determine the tradeoffs. They’re also an important corrective to the medical advice given to my mother’s generation, which was that “scientifically created, nutritionally balanced” formula was the best thing for one’s offspring.
I think the only overarching truth is that whatever you give them, it comes out as poop.