Does breast-feeding make babies smarter? Nobody knows for sure. Dr. Anjali Jain of the University of Chicago Children’s Hospital and two colleagues from Yale searched the medical literature and found 40 studies, from 1929 to February 2001, that considered the question (Pediatrics, June 6). They evaluated the studies–and had to throw out 38 of them. “Only 2 papers studied full-term infants and met all 4 standards of high-quality feeding data, controlled for 2 critical confounders, reported blinding [observers of the outcome didn’t know which babies were breast-fed], used an appropriate test, and allowed the reader to interpret the clinical significance of the findings with an effect size. Of these 2, 1 study concluded that the effect of breastfeeding on intellect was significant, and the other did not.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“Reform Jews conceded
of the marriage market in the
