Photo credit: Jason Carter- gulp via Flickr
Having breastfeed 4 boys, I felt like my body was on loan for many years…between being pregnant and breastfeeding (both of which I enjoyed), my body was not my own.
The recent news about the benefits boys incur as a result of having been breastfed however make me feel even better about my choice and commitment to breastfeed them. I know, reports vary from day to day. I know, you never know what to believe…but I would like to believe this one so I’ll assume it’s true.
So here’s what it said:
According tot he Medpage Today website, “Breast feeding for at least six months has been associated with enhanced immunity and other benefits for children — but a prospective study from Australia suggests breast feeding may also yield academic benefits later in a child’s life, at least for boys.
The study, which followed almost 3,000 children from birth onward, found those who were predominantly breast fed for six months or longer had significantly higher scores on standardized tests of reading, math, and spelling at age 10 compared with kids breast fed for shorter periods, according to Wendy Oddy, PhD, of Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth in Western Australia, and colleagues.
However, the effects on those test scores appeared to be much stronger for boys than for girls, Oddy and co-authors reported online in Pediatrics.”
Yippee!
Did you breastfeed? If so, for how long? If not, why? Would you change your decision if you could go back?
