Association Between Breastfeeding and Neurodevelopment at 6 Years of Age in the French PELAGIE Birth Cohort.
Marion Monperrus, Cécile Chevrier, Nathalie Costet and 10 others
PMID 40457895WHAT IT FOUND
Longer breastfeeding was associated with higher verbal comprehension and some attention, visuospatial, and memory scores in 286 six-year-olds after adjustment; working memory showed no association.
Key findings
01Children breastfed for at least 4 months had adjusted WISC verbal comprehension scores 5 points higher than children never breastfed or breastfed for 15 days or less.
02Children breastfed for more than 4 months had adjusted scores 1.00 points higher on the arrows subtest and 1.20 points higher on narrative memory than children never breastfed or breastfed for 15 days or less.
03Working memory index scores showed no significant difference between children breastfed for at least 4 months and children never breastfed or breastfed for 15 days or less, and showed no association with breastfeeding duration.
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How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Breastfeeding duration was collected retrospectively when children were 2 or 6 years old, and women who breastfed for short periods may have overreported duration, which could weaken the observed associations. Exclusive breastfeeding was not assessed, so the study cannot separate any breastfeeding from exclusive breastfeeding. Only 286 woman-child pairs were analysed after selection and attrition: 591 were randomly selected, 20 were excluded for health or testing reasons, 125 could not be reached, 18 were excluded for previous testing, 287 agreed, and 1 was excluded for missing breastfeeding data. The PELAGIE cohort was not representative of the French population, although breastfeeding rates and median duration were similar. The deprivation finding came from stratified analyses, not the main adjusted models, so it should not be treated as the primary result. Working memory showed no association, so the findings do not support a broad improvement across all cognitive domains.
Declared interests
The authors reported no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that breastfeeding causes better cognition or that it improves every cognitive domain. The paper reports associations, breastfeeding duration was collected retrospectively, exclusive breastfeeding was not measured, and working memory scores showed no association.