Association of Breastfeeding and Adolescents' Psychopathology: A Large Prospective Study

Abstract

Our data suggest that breastfeeding for at least 4 months can have a significant protective effect on a child's social, attention, and aggression problems in early adolescence. Given the limitations of the existing evidence, further research is needed to investigate the robustness of the findings of this study and the mechanisms of long-term association between breastfeeding and reduced social, attention, and aggression problems of the offspring in adolescence.

Support System on Successful Exclusive Breastfeeding on Primipara Based on Theory of Maternal Role Attainment

“…Recent evidence indicates that breastfeeding could s a ve over eight hundred thousand children's lives and about two hundred mothers' lives annually (victora, 2016). Further, breastfeeding has been associated with increased intelligence, education attainment at adult-hood, productivity, earning ability and social development (Hayatbakhsh MR, et al, 2012). Optimal breastfeeding as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) includes immediate initiation of breastfeeding, exclusive breastfeeding for six months and continued breastfeeding for at least two years with optimal complementary feeding from six months (WHO, 2003).…”

Does breast-feeding reduce offspring junk food consumption during childhood? Examinations by socio-economic status and race/ethnicity

“…Importantly, just under 3 % of the full sample was reported as being breastfed for 21 months or more. † Despite this slight truncation of the measure, our continuous, dose-response measure of breast-feeding is an improvement over most measures used in prior studies, at least in terms of specificity of duration (33)(34)(35)(36) .…”

Breastfeeding and the gut-brain axis: is there a role for melatonin?

“…Consequently, given that metabolic dysregulation increases the risk of a host of adult-onset medical conditions, breastfeeding would be expected to decrease the risk of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders (10). Metabolic dysregulation is also strongly associated with an increased risk of depression (10), with breastfeeding decreasing the risk of adolescent depression and wider psychopathology (11). It is also of note that the pathophysiological changes associated with depression overlap with, and may act to prime, the pathophysiological processes evident in Alzheimer's disease and other medical conditions (12).…”