So is breast best?

Breasts have a lot going for them but will they make your kids more intelligent?

Periodically the media runs stories based on research suggesting that breast-feeding makes your children smarter. But in the past it hasn't been clear from the research exactly what causes the apparent difference.

• Women who choose to breast feed may be more intelligent in the first place suggesting that it's their genes rather than the breast-milk that is behind their offsprings' intelligence.
• Or since breast-feeding takes more time and effort than the bottle, breast-feeding mums may have more time in general for reading and talking to their kids.

But the latest 'breast is best' research may be different. Conducted over six years in Belarus, it randomly-selected one group of women to breast-feed and one group to use formula milk. In theory, this should have removed all factors outside of breast-feeding itself from the research.  The result was that by the age of six and half, the breast-fed babies were on average scoring 5.9 points higher in IQ tests with verbal ability up 7.5 points.

But what does this finding show? It doesn't show that breast-milk makes you smarter. It may be that the bonding process between mother and baby that is needed to breast-feed makes baby brainier.

Lead resercher Michael Kramer of McGill University puts it like this: 'Even though the treatment difference appears causal, it remains unclear whether the observed cognitive benefits of breastfeeding are due to some constituent of breast milk or are related to the physical and social interactions inherent in breastfeeding.

'Essential long-chain fatty acids and a compound known as insulinlike growth factor I, both found in breast-milk, could be responsible for the cognitive differences. On the other hand, the physical or emotional component of breastfeeding may lead to permanent changes affecting brain development. Breastfeeding also may increase verbal interaction between mother and child, which could improve children's cognitive development.'

Clear as mud? In other words, we still don't know if its the milk or mum.

Add in the factor that IQ tests are poor measures of intelligence anyway - depending on mood and attitude, an individual's IQ from one test to another can vary by as much as 20 points - and it's hard to conclude that we're much the wiser.

So what's the solution? The answer is your common sense. Although some women through no fault of their own struggle to do it, the female body is designed for breast-feeding. It has evolved to do it and human milk has evolved too to best prepare baby for the environment into which he or she is being born. Formula milk has been developed in a factory as an easier-to-use imitation of it. Which one to choose? The answer if you have the time and your partner is able to do it is a bit of no-brainer.