Bottle-feed versus mother-feed children – Long term effects of infant feeding on congnitive development and school performance

Abstract

Mother feed (i.e. Breast feeding) provides essential nutrients, antibodies and immune cells to allow infant growth and protect them from infections. Mother feed not only have short term effects but it influences brain development as well as life time effects in many organ systems. This study was conducted to compare mother feed and bottle feed children at school going age. The self-administrated questionnaire survey was conducted including parents of children between 5 to 10 years of age (n=300). There was no significant difference found in the median age of children reported for, neither there was any significant difference in the weight of the two groups. However, bottle feed children significantly showed better performance in mathematics while mother feed children were significantly better in general science and physical activities at school. The study concluded that bottle feed or breast feed both provides nutrition and overall children were doing good.