Science creates market for formula

[Guest guest]

Science can be used very effectively to create a market amongst

intelligent people, those who use cell phones and internet. Now

having failed to provide good medicines, Big Pharma wishes to feed

formula to infants also.

 

Go by your motherly instincts rather than what science tells you.

Between you and your baby, do not bring anyone except God. It is often

said that the most important period to determine what a person will

become is from conception to one year of his age. No, author wishes to

modify this period as till breast feed lasts. This period many a time

goes to 2.5 years age. INprevious posts author talked about tribals.

Here he provides reference to the work of a health researchers on

tribal cultures.

 

There seems to be an implicit understanding within the health

profession that breastfeeding isn't quite good enough on its own.

While new mothers are tentatively encouraged to exclusively breastfeed

their newborn, they are also told about the advantages of solids,

especially after the first few months.

 

Few of new mothers have told over the years that they were advised to

supplement immediately, or that their milk supply wasn't rich enough,

or that their milk didn't have all the vital ingredients for a

developing baby.

 

A new report adds weight to this unspoken prejudice. It has tracked

the progress of 12,686 people who were aged between 14 and 22 years

when they were first interviewed in 1979. Since then, they have been

interviewed annually and, more recently, biennially. And guess what?

Those who were breastfed are no smarter than those who had milk

substitutes as babies.

 

If we turn a blind eye to the very unscientific basis of the study,

we're a little mystified by the purpose of the exercise. Very few

mothers set out to breast feed in order to have smarter children;

instead they see it as the best start for their babies, giving them

immediate natural immunity. Giving gives a greater satisfaction than

receiving.

 

Still, it's grist to the obstetrician's mill. As he walks away from

the hospital bed, he can now say, with full scientific authority: " And

another thing, Mrs xxx, breastfeeding isn't going to make your child

any smarter. "

 

Let us look at the brief conclusions of the study:

 

Despite its many advantages, breast feeding has little effect on

children's intelligence. In a cohort study of 3161 mothers and 5475

children, Der and colleagues found that breast feeding was associated

with higher IQ in children, but that this effect was almost entirely

accounted for by maternal IQ. More intelligent mothers were more

likely

to breast feed, and maternal IQ was more predictive of feeding choice

than mothers' age, education, home environment, and antenatal smoking

status, or children's birth weight and birth order.

(Source: British Medical Journal, 2006, Nov.4; 333: 945-8).

 

But researchers fed on exclusive breast milk still exist. A look at

the comments by such scientists:

 

1. James W Prescott, Ph.D.

" in this study the duration of breastfeeding is far too short to

expect any

significant effect on intelligence, as claimed. The authors

report " that the median duration of breastfeeding is three months and

the 95th percentile is 14 months " . This duration of breastfeeding is

far too short to test the hypothesis that there is a link between

breastfeeding and IQ.

 

There is increasing evidence that the long term health benefits of

breastfeeding is to be found in the emotional-social-sexual domain

rather than in the IQ domain and it takes breastfeeding bonding for

2.5

years to optimize brain-behavioral development to realize these

emotional-social- sexual developental effects.

 

The studies by this author on 26 tribal cultures with weaning age of

2.5 years or greater have documented that 77% of these cultures are

rated low or absent in depression/suicide; and that a statistically

significant difference exists in rated suicides between cultures with

WA of 2.0 years or less v 2.5 years or greater indicating a formative

period of brain development that would account for these effects.

There

are, of course, no tribal cultures that do not breastfeed. It takes a

particular kind of culture that supports a mother breastfeeding for

2.5

years or longer. See

http://www.violence.de/prescott/politics-trust.pdf and

http://www.violence.de/prescott/ttf/article.html;

http://violence.de/prescott/ttf/cultbrain.pdf

 

Clearly, this kind of data on breastfeeding for " two years of age and

beyond " , as recommended by WHO and UNICEF (Innocenti Declaration,

1990), does not exist in any of the national registers on

breastfeeding, unless the authors have information to the contrary.

Only 2.7 percent of American mothers are breastfeeding at two years of

life and only 1.0 percent at 2.5 years of life. (NHANES 111,1988--94)

(Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey). (Hedeger,

2001).

 

The effects of extended breastfeeding on reducing breast cancer was

reported by Zheng, et al (2000). They report:

 

" For women who breastfed for more than 24 months per child, the odds

ratio was 0.46 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.27, 0.78) when

compared

with those who breastfed for 1–6 months per child. A significantly

reduced risk of breast cancer was also found for those whose lifetime

duration of lactation totaled 73–108 months (odds ratio = 0.47, 95%

CI:

0.23, 0.95) and for those who breastfed for 109 months (odds ratio =

0.24, 95% CI: 0.11, 0.53) " .

 

It is time that modern neurodiagnostic tools of MRI, fMRI, PET scans

and other modern quantitative methods of brain evaluation be employed

to assess differences in brain structure and function in young adults

who have been breastfed for " two years and beyond " versus non-

breastfed

controls. There is an equal need to record the weaning age of every

child and make it a part of the immunological record and a nation's

vital statistics record. There is an urgent need to establish a new

international growth record that includes parameters of brain

development and function, as they are not now a part of the

breastfeeding record to evaluate the nutritional effectiveness of

infant formula milk (WHO, 2001).

http://www.who.int/inf- pr-2001/en/note2001-07.html.,

 

The psychobiology of breastfeeding takes time that is not recognized

by

modern human cultures and that it takes a particular kind of culture

to

support mothers breastfeeding for " two years of age and beyond " . The

modern human culture has lost its cultural heritage and is not one of

these cultures.

 

References

Hediger, M (2001). The Third National Health and Nutrition Examination

Survey, 1988-1994). Personal Communication. National Institute of

Child

Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Institutes of Health

(NIH).Bethesda, MD.

Prescott, J.W., Read, M.S., Coursin, D. B. (Eds).(1975) Brain Function

and Malnutrition: Neuropsychological Methods of Assessment. John

Wiley,

New York.

Prescott, J.W. (1997). Breastfeeding: Brain nutrients in brain

development for human love and peace. Touch the Future. Spring .

http://www.violence.de/prescott/ttf/article.html

Prescott, J.W.(2002) How Culture Shapes the Developing Brain .Touch

the

Future . Spring http://violence.de/prescott/ttf/cultbrain.pdf

Prescott, J.W.(2005). Prevention or Therapy and The Politics of Trust:

Inspiring A New Human Agenda. Psychotherapy and Politics

International.

3(3): 194-211. http://www.violence.de/prescott/politics- trust.pdf

Tongzhang Zheng, Li Duan, Yi Liu, Bing Zhang, Yan Wang, Yongxiang

Chen,

Yawei Zhang and Patricia H. Owens (2000). Lactation Reduces Breast

Cancer Risk in Shandong Province, China. American Journal of

Epidemiology Vol. 152, No. 12 : 1129-1135

WHO/UNICEF. (1990) Innocenti Declaration: On the Protection, Promotion

and Support of Breastfeeding. Florence, Italy--1 August

WHO (2001). The Optimal Duration of Exclusive Breastfeeding. Results

of

a WHO systematic review.Note for the Press #7.Geneva,

http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2001/en/note2001-07.html.

 

2. Timothy DH Smith,

GP Registrar

Penrhyndeudraeth, North Wales LL48 6AL

Der et al. conclude that a higher intelligence in breast fed children

is attributable to higher maternal IQ (Breast feeding does not

increase

children's intelligence, BMJ Nov 4 edition). Other studies have also

observed that in Western cultures, women in higher socio-economic

groups (on average with higher IQ) are more likely to breast feed

(e.g.

Li et al.) However, Der et al. have neglected a possible confounder to

their own conclusion.

 

Parental poverty is a good predictor of poverty in the next generation

(Ludwig et al.), and therefore, the mother of a child who is breast

fed

is more likely herself to have been breast fed. Indeed, family

attitudes have been shown to be an important factor in whether a woman

decides to breastfeed (McFadden et al.)

 

Some of the increased intelligence amongst breast feeding mothers

reported by Der et al., may itself be down to their own mothers having

breast fed them when they were babies. Consequently, the beneficial

effect of breast feeding to intelligence, may be handed down from

generation to generation.

 

References:

Der G, Batty GD, Deary IJ. " Breast feeding does not increase

children's

intelligence. " BMJ 2006 333: 945.

Li R, Darling N, Maurice E, Barker L, Grummer-Strawn

LM. " Breastfeeding

rates in the United States by characteristics of the child, mother, or

family: the 2002 National Immunization Survey. " Pediatrics. 2005

Jan;115

(1):e31-7.

Ludwig J, Mayer S. " 'Culture' and the intergenerational transmission

of

poverty: the prevention paradox. " Future Child. 2006 Fall;16(2):175-

96.

McFadden A, Toole G. " Exploring women's views of breastfeeding: a

focus

group study within an area with high levels of socio-economic

deprivation. " Matern Child Nutr. 2006 Jul;2(3):156-68.

 

3. Manfred B Klevesath,

Specialist Registrar in General Surgery

West Suffolk Hospital, Bury St Edmunds, IP33 2QZ

 

I welcome the report by Der et al. on evaluating the influence of

maternal intelligence on the link between breast feeding and

intelligence in children (1). Given the considerable degree of

heritability of intelligence, the need for adjusting for maternal IQ

appears to be evident, and it is surprising that relatively few of the

previous studies have done so. Extending this line of argument, it

would seem plausible to adjust for the father's IQ as well, unless one

assumes that maternal and paternal IQ's are highly correlated.

Secondly, there is some evidence from twin and adoption studies that

the influence of the environment on the IQ decreases with age whereas

the genetic contribution increases (2-4). Children's IQ's in the study

were tested between ages 5-14 and this may therefore overestimate the

contribution of breast feeding to IQ in this age group relative to

genetic factors, such as maternal IQ. The influence of breast feeding

on adult IQ might be even less.

 

These considerations should not, however, deflect from that fact that

there remains a large body of evidence suggesting that breast feeding

is beneficial for mothers and infants.

 

1. Der G, Batty GD, Deary IJ. Effect of breast feeding on intelligence

in children: prospective study, sibling pairs analysis, and meta-

analysis. Bmj 2006;333(7575):945.

2. Wilson RS. Synchronies in mental development: an epigenetic

perspective. Science 1978;202(4371):939-48.

3. Teasdale TW, Owen DR. Heredity and familial environment in

intelligence and educational level--a sibling study. Nature 1984;309

(5969):620-2.

4. Plomin R, Fulker DW, Corley R, DeFries JC. Nature, nurture, and

cognitive development from 1 to 16 years: A parent-offspring adoption

study. Psychological Science 1997;8(6):442-7.

 

 

Ayurveda gurus mention connection between mothers/cow's milk and

intelligence level, now west researches the ancient knowledge to

disprove the ancient wisdom!