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. 2020 Aug 2;12(8):2320.
doi: 10.3390/nu12082320.

Exclusive Breastfeeding Predicts Higher Hearing-Language Development in Girls of Preschool Age

Maria Angela Guzzardi  1 , Federico Granziera  1 , Elena Sanguinetti  1 , Francesca Ditaranto  2 , Filippo Muratori  2 , Patricia Iozzo  1
Affiliations

Exclusive Breastfeeding Predicts Higher Hearing-Language Development in Girls of Preschool Age

Maria Angela Guzzardi et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Cognitive disorders are increasing in prevalence. Nutritional or metabolic stressors during early life, and female sex, are predisposing conditions towards the development of cognitive diseases, including Alzheimer's disease. Though there is evidence that breastfeeding may play a beneficial role in children's neurocognitive development, the literature remains controversial. In this study we aimed at assessing the association between exclusive breastfeeding and children's cognitive development from six months to five years of age, addressing sex differences. In 80 mother-child pairs from the Pisa birth cohort (PISAC), we measured cognitive development in groups of children of 6, 12, 18, 24, 36, and 60 months by Griffiths Mental Development Scales, parents' intelligence quotient (IQ) by Raven's progressive matrices, and maternal and infants' anthropometric parameters. We found that exclusive breastfeeding was associated with higher hearing-language development in five years old girls, independent of maternal IQ, age and BMI (body mass index). Exclusive breastfeeding in the first three months of life seemed sufficient to establish this positive relationship. In conclusion, our data indicate that exclusive breastfeeding is a positive predictor of cognitive development in preschool-age girls, paving the way for the implementation of sex-specific cognitive disease risk detection and prevention strategies from early life. Further studies are warranted to explore causality and longer term effects.

Keywords: breastfeeding; cognitive development; maternal obesity.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Cognitive development measured in the six cognitive domains (A–F) in exclusively breastfed (closed circles) and nonexclusively breastfed (open circles) girls at different ages (6, 12, 18, 24, 36, 60 months). N = 9, 10, 14, 10, 13, 25 at progressive ages. Practical reasoning skills are measured from the age of 36 months. Data are represented as mean ± sem. * p ≤ 0.05.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Cognitive development measured in the six cognitive domains (A–F) in exclusively breastfed (closed triangles) and nonexclusively breastfed (open triangles) boys at different ages (6, 12, 18, 24, 36, 60 months). N = 15, 16, 12, 13, 14, 30 at progressive ages. Practical reasoning skills are measured from the age of 36 months. Data are represented as mean ± sem. * p ≤ 0.05.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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