New findings suggest breast feeding may not be significantly more beneficial than bottle feeding after all.
The researchers looked at "11 long-term health and well-being outcomes in children age [four] to 14," an Ohio State University news release reported. The studies encompassed people of various races and socioeconomic circumstances. All but one of the studies found that breast feeding did not give children a huge benefit.
"Many previous studies suffer from selection bias. They either do not or cannot statistically control for factors such as race, age, family income, mother's employment - things we know that can affect both breast-feeding and health outcomes," Cynthia Colen, assistant professor of sociology at The Ohio State University and lead author of the study, said in the news release. "Moms with more resources, with higher levels of education and higher levels of income, and more flexibility in their daily schedules are more likely to breast-feed their children and do so for longer periods of time."
Federal health officials have deemed breast feeding for the first six months of life a "national priority."
"I'm not saying breast-feeding is not beneficial, especially for boosting nutrition and immunity in newborns," Colen said. "But if we really want to improve maternal and child health in this country, let's also focus on things that can really do that in the long term - like subsidized day care, better maternity leave policies and more employment opportunities for low-income mothers that pay a living wage, for example."
"Parental race, age, marital status, family income, insurance coverage, the mother's education and employment, and whether a woman smokes or drinks during pregnancy," are all factors that need to be taken into consideration when evaluating the benefits of breast feeding, the news release reported.
Across 10 of the 11 studies, researchers found in situations where one siblin was breastfed and the other was not, the number of times one fared better than the other was not statistically significant.
"We need to take a much more careful look at what happens past that first year of life and understand that breast-feeding might be very difficult, even untenable, for certain groups of women. Rather than placing the blame at their feet, let's be more realistic about what breast-feeding does and doesn't do," Colen said.
