LLL says breastfed babies are smarter than formula fed ones?

Question

OK. Well, why do we have nearly and entire generation of intellectual people from the 50's and 60's, most of whom were raised on homemade Carnation formula, who have gone on to be great philosophers, doctors, scientists, inventors, thinkers, and educators?

Do you screen your M.D. before choosing him to see if he was breastfed? If not, and he's a top-ranking surgeon due to operate on you, would you disqualify him and choose Dr. Biibbedyflipp down the road that was breastfed?

Would you yank your child out of her AP biology class after finding out that the teacher was formula fed?

If you found out Picasso drank goats milk most of his babyhood, would it make his work any less beautiful?

Suppose a formula fed kid grows up to be your precious breastfed Timmy's boss or CEO? Oh, Timmy should automatically advance from mail clerk to supervisor because of his infant diet?

My cousin is WAY smarter thn me. I was breastfed, she was formula fed. Has a PHd, I don't. What do I do?

Bullshit. Why do I have high blood pressure? So do all my old "breastfed" 60-80 year old family members. Pure bull.

Answer 1

The people who preach all the benefits of breastfeeding sometimes surpass anything that resembles common sense or credible data..I remember reading one claim that said breastfeeding could reduce the need for orthodontics.Have these people never heard of genetics? I remember thinking that some supporters of breastfeeding were reducing it to the traveling medicine man of the past (quacks).How do they equate the ability to breastfeed with making you a superior parent.Oh if it were only that simple.These yappies (I didn't spell it wrong) offend anyone with any intelligence. Some of these insecure adults also find it necessary to co-sleep with their babies until they are young children ( into adulthood if they could)and then write Q.& A. and ask " how do they get the child into their own bed".I always thought that most babies lost the umbilical cord at birth .It seems some people are holding onto it for dear life.

Answer 2

Okay, yeah your right about the older babies being smart and they had bottles with formula, but being a mother of 4 kids that were all breastfed, I only did breast-for longer than 6 months/each. What I have been told is that when a baby uses the breast, they have to use their mouths and jaws harder to get the milk to come out. The milk is also healthier, has more protein, vitamins and minerals which are prefect for the brain of a newborn. I'm not suggesting that bottle/formula fed babies are any less smarter than breastfed babies, but I know what I have been told by experts and what I have seen with my own childern.

Don't let anyone tell you that the other is better than the first. You do what is BEST for you and for YOUR baby. Not what is expected from others. That is what I was told by friends and family and I CHOSE to breastfeed. Who's to say that human milk is better than formula. You could bottle feed another Einstein or you could breastfeed another "Forest Gump".

Answer 3

It's not bull. What you have to understand is that the statistics represent an average, though. On average, breastfeed babies tend to score higher on IQ tests, this has been studied and proven. However, if you look at individuals in either group, you'll find wide variances, that's why you have to have a statistically significant sample and look at the average.

I'm the youngest of four. My older siblings were all breastfed for a year or more and I didn't get a drop of breast milk. One of my breastfed siblings is really smart, but no smarter than me. The other two....well, I'm just grateful they got as much as they did. I like to tease them that they needed the breastmilk just so they could come up to my level.

It was important to me to give my daughter breastmilk for her first year. She's now a very smart, curious, talkative wonderful 2-year old. Do I attribute all of that to breast milk? Definitely not. But maybe parents who are committed to breastfeeding also are more inclined to actively nurture their kids. It takes a big committment to breastfeed a child - it takes a lot of your time, you can't just easily have someone else feed the baby like you can if you use formula. It can be draining, especially if you are working at the same time and have to pump. So, in my opinion, it may also have to do a lot with the fact that parents who are breastfeeding advocates are also very connected parents, and those parents will likely spend more time nurturing and, on average, produce smarter kids. But that's just my opinion.

Answer 4

Seems like you are being pretty defensive here. Calm the hell down!

Don't be so absurd, do your breastfeeding homework. Are you just trying to rationalize the fact that you didn't do the best thing for yours by bottlefeeding?

The stats don't say EVERY breastfed baby is smarter. And it is only through age 15 that the IQ scores are higher. After that it varies.

And having a Ph.D. Doesn't make someone smarter than you. Simply more educated. Your IQ depends solely on you. It can fluctuate depending on how much you learn, and what you do with the knowledge you acquire, there are many mitigating factors.

And who gives you the right to downplay all the benefits of breastfeeding? There is SO much more to it than how smart it makes the child. It is the way we were intended to feed our children. Formula wasn't even introduced until the last century, and we did just fine without it.

The only thing formula did was give American women the ability to be more selfish and lazy, which is exactly what has happened to us.

Answer 5

It was probably taken out of context. It is just to give perspective not to judge people who were or weren't breastfed. Most parents want their children to have the best chance possible in life, and LLL probably was putting perspective on it. Scientifically speaking, it is hard to prove anything about intelligence b/c there isn't a universal way of measuring it.

Just a side note-- what do we all think breasts are for?? They have no other purpose than to provide milk for offspring. Cows don't feed soy milk or rice milk to calves, so what reason do we have to believe some plant or other animal species has a baby food more nutritionally superior than what our own bodies make. I just think it's important that we realize that nature does most things better than science can. Even most prescription drugs on the market are a derivative of some natural substance, but you can't put a patent on nature.

Answer 6

I was formula fed and I am an under-achieving SAHM with a messy house. I am overweight (about 50 pounds) with high blood pressure and a perfect candidate for diabetes. My husband was breastfed until he was 3 years old, is very healthy and only slightly overweight (5 or 10 pounds) and has a PhD in robotic engineering.
Does this prove anything? To me it does - I just wanted to give my son the best possible chance in life.

Answer 7

You can't soley blame being breastfed or formula fed as an excuse as to why you are or are not smart. Alot of that has to do with Genetics too. Maybe your cousin got the smart genes and you didn't. No offense...

The PHD thing....is just as simple as pursing it by furthering your eduction by going to college. You could get it too, if you truly wanted too. It has nothing to do with being breastfed or not.

It is a known fact that breastfeeding helps the brain develop better along with other organs of the body. Formula does the same thing only it's artificially made. Some mothers prefer natural nutrients and the only way to get those, is by doing the natrual thing...breastfeeding.

Answer 8

It's not guaranteed that breastfed infants will be smarter. What the doctors are saying is that breasfed infants are generally smarter than the formula fed. There are more important advantages to breatfeeding....like the babies immune system. Breastfed infants have much better immune systems than formula fed infants. Also, women are intended to breastfeed! That's why we produce milk.

Answer 9

One of the things that I have never seen explored (maybe it has been but I just missed it) is whether there are problems with cause and effect here. Are mothers who are likely to breastfeed more likely to have smarter kids? There is a time commitment that involved and its a lot of work to breastfeed. Are moms who are willing to make the commitment more likely to have smarter kids?

I suspect that kids who are read to and encouraged to read tend to be smarter kids. If you can find a certain type of mom/parent who is more likely to read/encourage reading, you may conclude (incorrectly) that moms/parents of that type are more likely to have smarter kids. There would be a cause and effect problem.

And you cannot look at individual cases as evidence that valid statistics are not valid. There are a lot of variances/variables at play. And all that assumes a valid cause and effect which as I noted, I am not sure is completely the case with breastfeeding and intelligence. At a minimum, I think there are other factors at play that have an impact which go unquantified.

Answer 10

I disagree
I have 2 kids,
1 breast fed, very smart yes, but a little sick at times(more than the other)
1 formula fed, and wow, she's always seemed much healthier than the other, and is always in good health,
I think it matters what you want to do, both are just as good..
And with formula, you never have to worry about your diet, and eating the extra calories every day.