LoveAlways
Bluelighter
lol Busty everything you said, so true!!
One thing I personally wonder about, and that is that I have no doubt that breast-milk contains more than one hormone. Seeing that breast-feeding is a natural phase of mammals' life cycles, I wonder if the lack of exposure to these hormones has any effect (positive or negative) on the baby's development?
When you think about it, a newborn baby is only recently a separate entity from their mother. When they drink their mother's breast milk, they are drinking a nutrient solution designed by nature specifically for them-- dispensed by a body they were recently a part of. You can't find anything more suited to a baby's health and well-being than that.
LaceyK-
Formula is not just like breast milk. when the mother breastfeeds, her antibodies pass thru the milk into her child, which helps the baby develop immunity and breast fed babies have less problems with many illnesses and common problems for babies becuz of this. Hormones also pass thru the breast milk to the baby that promotes bonding with the mother. You cant get those things from formula.
Abstract
Children's intellectual development is influenced by both genetic inheritance and environmental experiences. Breastfeeding is one of the earliest such postnatal experiences. Breastfed children attain higher IQ scores than children not fed breast milk, presumably because of the fatty acids uniquely available in breast milk. Here we show that the association between breastfeeding and IQ is moderated by a genetic variant in FADS2, a gene involved in the genetic control of fatty acid pathways. We confirmed this gene-environment interaction in two birth cohorts, and we ruled out alternative explanations of the finding involving gene-exposure correlation, intrauterine growth, social class, and maternal cognitive ability, as well as maternal genotype effects on breastfeeding and breast milk. The finding shows that environmental exposures can be used to uncover novel candidate genes in complex phenotypes. It also shows that genes may work via the environment to shape the IQ, helping to close the nature versus nurture debate.
AIM: To investigate whether breastfeeding during infancy is a determinant of intelligence at 3.5 y.
[...]
CONCLUSION: Breastfeeding may be particularly important for the cognitive development of preschool children born small for gestational age.
Abstract
The relation between breastfeeding and childhood cognitive development was examined in 1991-1993 among 439 school-age children weighing <1,500 g when born in the United States between 1991 and 1993. Measures of cognitive function included overall intellectual function, verbal ability, visual-spatial and visual-motor skill, and memory. Higher test scores for each domain of cognitive function except memory were observed among children who were breastfed directly. After covariate adjustment for home environment, maternal verbal ability, a composite measure of parental education and occupation, and length of hospitalization, the authors found that breastfed children evidenced an advantage only for measures specific to visual-motor integration (5.1 intelligence quotient (IQ) points, 95% confidence interval: 1.0, 9.2). Differences in test scores between breastfed children and those who did not receive any breast milk feedings were 3.6 IQ points (95% confidence interval: -0.3, 7.5) for overall intellectual functioning and 2.3 IQ points (95% confidence interval: -3.0, 7.6) for verbal ability. Indicators of social advantage confound the association between breastfeeding and cognitive function, but careful measurement can reduce residual confounding and may clarify causal relations.