Bright babes prefer breasts to bottles

It is one of the most hotly debated topics in pregnancy and early motherhood. Does breast feeding boost a baby's intelligence?

Now the largest scientific study yet has settled the issue. Breast-fed babies are indeed smarter - because their mothers are.

Mothers who breast feed tend to be more intelligent, more highly educated and to provide more stimulation at home.

The higher IQ of their babies is therefore mostly inherited, accounting for 75 per cent of the difference between them and bottle-fed babies, the researchers found.

The rest of the difference is down to the environment in which they are raised. Breast-fed babies have mothers who are older and better educated, and live in nicer homes where they get more attention.

When all these factors were taken into account, breast feeding made less than half a point's difference in the intelligence scores - laying to rest a myth that is almost 80 years old.

Geoff Der, a statistician from the Medical Research Council's Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Edinburgh, said: "This question has been debated since a link between the two was discovered in 1929.

"We found 73 articles which dealt with the link. Breast-fed children do tend to score higher on intelligence tests, but they also tend to come from more advantaged backgrounds."

The study, in the British Medical Journal this week, is based on US data on the breast-feeding history and IQs of 5000 children and 3000 mothers which was not available in Britain.

"There is no reason why the same findings would not apply here," said Mr Der.

The researchers also looked at families where one child was breast fed and the other wasn't. This confirmed the findings that breast feeding made no difference to IQ.

Mr Der said: "Intelligence is determined by factors other than breast feeding. But breast feeding has many benefits for both mother and child. It is definitely the smart thing to do."

In England and Wales, 77 per cent of babies are breast fed initially, but over a third of mothers stop within the first six weeks. Nine out of 10 mothers in the professional and managerial class start breast feeding compared with just over six out of 10 among manual workers.

Breast feeding boosts the baby's immunity, protecting against infections, and reduces the risk of asthma and eczema in childhood.

It also cuts the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity in adult-hood.

Rosie Dodds, policy researcher at the National Childbirth Trust, said evidence from parts of the world where breast feeding is commoner among poorer women cast doubt on the claim that it had no link with intelligence.

- INDEPENDENT