Literacy news

Breastfeeding may help to offset early disadvantages, researchers say

26 Mar 2009

Researchers who analysed the behaviour of mothers reading a storybook to their one-year-old children found that, on average, those who breastfed made more effort to engage their infants in the book than mothers who bottle-fed. In general, mothers with more positive attitudes towards breastfeeding also appeared to have a warmer relationship with their babies.

The greatest differences in behaviour were between two groups of single and low-income mothers, those who breastfed for between 6–12 months, and those who bottle-fed. Poorer women who breastfed interacted with their babies during the book-reading exercise almost as well as more advantaged mothers did. However, low-income mothers who bottle-fed their babies tended to communicate with them much less well than other mothers, the researchers say.

Dr. Leslie Gutman, Research Director of the Institute's Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning and the report's main author, suggests future studies should investigate the processes behind the findings, such as establishing whether skin-to-skin contact forms stronger bonds between breastfed infants and their mothers which, in turn, lead to more positive parenting.

Dr. Gutman and her colleagues also found that "the networking and social interactions that go on between parents in children's centres, early years settings, community groups and many other community venues, such as libraries, and health and leisure centres, are of great value" as they found that mothers with extensive social networks interacted with their infants more positively, on average, than mothers with more limited social circles.

Nurturing parenting capability: the early years, by Leslie Gutman, John Brown and Rodie Akerman, can be downloaded from the website of the Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning www.learningbenefits.net

(26 March 2009)

Tags: Early Years, Talk To Your Baby

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