A new study has found that breast feeding for longer could help children to develop bigger brains. The three years study conducted by research team from Durham University over one hundred and thirty species of mammal, including human being revealed that longer pregnancies and longer suckling times generate bigger brains in children.
It potentially escorts to higher IQ. The study has been greeted by specialists and has weighed to squabble that breast is best. In the study, the team concentrated on body size, brain, motherly investment and life history variables in mammals like gorillas and whales.
According to Prof Robert Barton from the university’s Department of Anthropology, their findings cannot say if formula milk for children is adequate or just equivalent to a mother’s milk in the growth of the brain of a baby, but it does lift up questions that could be further examined.
The study that they have done helps to understand what the insinuations are of evolutionary transformations at different stages before and after birth. Additionally they have discovered that brain development in children is associated with the amount of time and energy mothers invest in their child.
There is a strong association between precise issues in the way a mother invests in producing her offspring and a connection between growth of the foetus and length of gestation. They now need to do more study into how growth before and after birth affects the anatomy of the brain.
The study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, recommends that mother who breastfeed their babies for up to three years, subsequent to nine month pregnancies have a long period dependency as it is needed to support the growth of thirteen hundred cubic centimetre (cc) brains.
However, mammals like fallow deer that have about the same body weight as humans, are pregnant for just seven months with a suckling period of up to six months. This results in two hundred and twenty cubic centimetre brains that are six times lesser than human brains.
The analysis will support the World Health Organization’s advice of six months exclusive breastfeeding subsequent to suckling up to the age of two or beyond, supplemented with solid foods. It highlights the need to encourage mothers to breastfeed in the first six months of baby’s life and then as far as long possible after that, explained Helen Robinson, public health specialist from NHS North of Tyne.