How does that prove the study wrong? That's like saying because I have one uncle that smokes and hasn't died yet that cigarettes can't possibly cause cancer.

Okay. You don't like the word wrong.

Inconclusive, Inconclusive, Inconclusive.

There, feel better now?

As for your analysis, wrong. You would have to have more than one, two, or even three uncles who smoke who haven't died from cancer YET to prove that study wrong. Additionally, that is no longer a study because there is significant proof that it is fact...Smoking causes Cancer!

I agree with your anecdotal evidence.

My step daughter was breastfead. Struggles to achieve a D on tests. She will probably end up working at a fast food place after high school.

I was bottle feed like many babies in the 1970's. I have both bachelors and masters degrees.

This study does not prove squat.

Wow, I adore people with zero understanding of stats. The study says "tends to" not "will." You can certainly have people who don't follow the results of any study.

It's not fair to link a child's academic success solely to how they were fed as infants. It's just one factor - like discipline or having a stable, loving, supportive household. The story did concede that having higher income parents was linked to longer nursing. Higher income = more resources for education early on among other things.

If 2/3 of your children did that poorly in school, I would be looking at factors beyond their early nutrition for an explanation.

Did look into it. Oldest daughter took after mom's genealogy and had natural academic abilities and intelligence. Two youngest took after dad's genealogy and had natural un-academic abilities and semi-average intelligence. Dad has ADHD, very poor reading comprehension, and was very poor student. Mom has above average intelligence, very good reading comprehension, no ADHD and was excellent student.

In the end it all goes back to geneology and what you may or may not inherit from your family lineage.

My West Virginain buddy says this study is full of crap. He has been breast feeding from his 14 year old niece, and her test scores haven't gone up one damn point.

I agree with you. You have to think that social issues are at play here.

JON-B --- Good points. I bet the breast feeding results would not be same if one group was breast fed by the natural mother and the other group was breast fed by a professional nurser.

As a working mom who breastfed her children for 9 months, I take offense at the statement

"Is it possible that many mothers that take the time to breastfeed are actually stay at home mothers that are also very involved with their children?"

My working allows both my husband AND I to be involved with our kids, camping, hiking, biking, Scouting, church youth group, coaching sports and other activities. And they both test out in the top 5th percentile on national standardized testing.

That said, I breastfed not to make my kids smarter, but because it is the way our bodies are designed to function. And I found it a whole lot easier at 2 am. However, there's a whole generation out there that was primarily formula fed - and with less optimal formulas than we have today - that have managed to form close bonds with their parents and succeed in life. Oh yeah - I would be one of them.

Correlation does not imply causation. In this case it sounds like the nipple nazies are at again.

.

Why are you hating on cheetos?

Yeah...pretty sure this has nothing to do with parenting or not parenting.

Good one!

Haha... :)

funny

This works for most college students as well.

I probably would have done better in college if I did a little less thinking about breastfeeding and a little more thinking about coming tests.

It nevery helped my grades.

Yeah I don't really trust studies like these. Unless they know exactly how the kid would have turned out NOT being breastfed, they really don't know if coincidentally the kid was just more intelligent or worked harder.

It is true - you can't do a true double blind study on something as involved as child rearing. People also have to realize that studies like this only work across huge population. You're always going to have plenty of examples that don't fit the pattern. Group statistics break down when applied to a population that is too small. For example, there are studies that indicate that breast feeding may reduce a woman's risk of breast cancer. Immediately everyone jumps out of the woodwork with examples of women who breast fed and still developed breast cancer. They don't get that the study doesn't say "if you breastfeed you won't develop breast cancer" - what they say is that "looking at thousands of women, the rate of certain breast cancers is considerably lower among those who breastfed at least 6 months". Still an unfortunate number of women developing breast cancer - but anything that reduces the total is progress. Same here - in your family, your mileage may vary, but when looking at large populations a STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT change is seen (I shouted that because statistically significant may actually seem pretty small to the general public).

LOL...LOL!!

I don't disagree with you. Have 2 sons doing exceptionally well in school. Both breast fed, and the wife was a stay at home mom.

Ya MSNBC shredded 300 pages of what was probably much better science into a 10 paragraph Readers Digest version. Without additional information it's hard to determine what the root cause of the elevated test scores was. Even if it's not the direct result of breastmilk, it's a good place to start.

Another LOL...LOL!!

And I can relate to your mom's growing length over time.