Breast-Feeding May Have Benefits Later

Breast-feeding has well established short-term benefits, but now researchers have found that its advantages may persist into adulthood.

Many studies of breast-feeding are confounded by social factors — in the United States, for example, people of higher socioeconomic status tend to breast-feed longer. But the population in this study covered a wide-ranging socioeconomic spectrum of women who breast-fed.

The study, in the April issue of Lancet Global Health, began in 1982 with 5,914 newborns. The duration of breast-feeding and the age when the babies began eating solid foods was recorded. Thirty years later, researchers were able to interview and test 3,493 of the original group.