Raise Your Child's IQ: Breastfeed & Read!

With all the buzz about about how first born kids have higher IQs than their later born siblings, I keep hearing from parents asking how they can make it up to their second and third children. Check out my recent blog  on this for my answer, but the most important thing is to attend to each child's emotional development, which is more important to their eventual success than a few IQ points. 

That said, if you're serious about raising any child's IQ, there are two foolproof methods that any parent can use.

First, read to your child a lot, and drastically limit or eliminate TV.  Your child will do better academically, and will test higher on any test he or she ever takes, including IQ tests.  Research has yet to tease out exactly how many IQ points you will be gifting your child (because kids who watch less TV and read more also have more involved parents and higher incomes), but it will blow birth order out of the water. (Why does TV decrease reading?  Because it takes kids awhile to become good enough readers to really love reading.  If the TV habit is allowed to take hold before that time, kids never read for fun. For more info, see Why TV Compromises Academics).

Second, breastfeed.  A comprehensive review of 11 different studies involving over 7000 children, published in the October edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, concluded that breastfed infants tested 5.2 IQ points higher on average than formula-fed infants,.

But wait.  Was that because the more educated mothers beast fed?  Or because breastfeeding is associated with better maternal bonding, and the bonding raised the kids' IQs?  Of because breast-feeding is associated with higher incomes, which are also associated with higher IQs?

The asociation between breast-feeding and more advanced brain development is well established, but many researchers have assumed that's because well-educated, wealthier women breast-feed more often, and their children score better on mental tests because of class and educational advantages.

Nutritionist James Anderson, who led the study, says that within the IQ increase, his team was able to separate the benefits from mother-infant bonding from the purely nutritional benefits of human milk.  "Our best estimates are that maternal bonding and the decision to breast-feed account for about 40 percent of that increase, but that 60 percent -- 3.2 points -- are related to the actual nutritional value of the breast milk," he said.

This is the first large study I know of that's controlled for maternal bonding, the decision to breast-feed, education, income, birth weight, maternal smoking, and even birth order.  Controlling for all these factors, breastfed babies still tested over three points higher in IQ than formula-fed babies, a slightly greater differential than the birth order difference over which everyone is making such a big fuss.

Babies' brains develop rapidly in the first year after birth, laying the neural groundwork for later intelligence, mood, and emotional self-control.  This brain development depends on the food babies have traditionally been given, which is, of course, breast milk.  Feeding babies formula is a wholesale experiment which may have unforeseen consequences, especially given that our science is just beginning to figure out what's in breast milk.  Even some breast-milk components that have been identified for some time are not part of infant formulas, such as the fatty acids DHA and AA, which are known to encourage brain development.  Apparently the companies who manufacture formula aren't eager to cut into their profits by adding Omega-3 fatty acids until required to by law.  

Want more info on why breastfeeding is best for your baby?  Check out Breastfeeding.com