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Babies who are breastfed are less likely to grow into children with behavior problems by the time they reach the age of 5 than those who received formula milk, scientists said on Tuesday.
In a study in the Archives of Disease in Childhood journal, British researchers used a "strengths and difficulties" questionnaire completed by parents about their children and found that abnormal scores were less common in children who were breastfed for at least four months.
Maria Quigley of the national perinatal epidemiology unit at Oxford University, who led the work, said the findings "provide even more evidence for the benefits of breastfeeding".
Some benefits of breastfeeding are already well known - for example breastfed babies have lower rates of infections, and mothers who breastfeed have a reduced risk of breast cancer.
In this study, researchers from the universities of Oxford, Essex, York and from University College London used a nationwide British survey of babies born in 2000 and 2001, called the Millennium Cohort Study, and included data for more than 9,500 mothers and babies born at full term to families of white ethnic background.
They used data on whether mothers had breastfed and for how long, and combined these with the results of the "strengths and difficulties" questionnaire used for identifying children with possible behavioral problems.
They found that abnormal scores for the questionnaires, which indicate potential behavioral problems, were less common in children breastfed for at least four months - at 6 percent - than in formula fed children - at 16 percent.
The lower risk of a full-term breastfed child having abnormal scores for behavior was also evident even when the researchers took into account other important influences such as socio-economic or parental factors.
The researchers said one possible reason for the findings was that breast milk contains large amounts of essential long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, growth factors and hormones, which are important in brain and nervous system development.
The results might also be explained by the fact that breastfeeding leads to more interaction between mother and child and better learning of acceptable behaviors, they said.
Peter Kinderman, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Liverpool, who was not involved in the study, said it was a good piece of research with important findings.
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About the broadcaster:
Nelly Min is an editor at China Daily with more than 10 years of experience as a newspaper editor and photographer. She has worked at major newspapers in the U.S., including the Los Angeles Times and the Detroit Free Press. She is also fluent in Korean.
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