Were you one of those kids who got good grades in school, or were you always picked last for the class spelling bee team?
Web Watch has found a new study from the Journal of Human Capital that did a comparison of students’ grades based on whether the student was breastfed or not.
The two professors, Joseph Sabia from the American University and University of Colorado Denver professor Daniel Rees, studied information from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to DETERMINE THE EFFECTS THAT BREASTFEEDING AN INFANT HAS ON THEIR LATER SCHOOL CAREER.
What they found was that an additional month of breastfeeding would increase a high school grade point average by 0.019 points, and would increase the probability of the student later attending college by 0.014. This does not mean that if you breastfed for 5 additional years that you would get an increase of 1.14 to your GPA.
Their study was done by comparing data about siblings, one of which was breastfed as an infant while the other was not. By limiting the study to siblings, the professors were able to eliminate any influence being raised by different families would have on the students’ success.
So for those of you who thought that the Web Watch piece on the daughter her breastfed her dad was weird, at least this is more practical information that can be put to immediate use.